another good weekend

a nice social start, by meeting helly for lunch on friday. then of course, a second lunch break with dhruv, followed by the early departure from office.

suhail came home in the evening. we went together to maroosh in phoenix mills and had a dinner of 3 plates of kebab and roomali rotis. dipu joined us, having eaten already at home. we cabbed it to churchgate, met up with shek and shefali and went to not just jazz by the bay. tuhina was there with colleagues. not that it makes any difference to us, but generally, iim-iim bond. plus she's hot. then we had, landing up there, the sbi mf gang, in terms of enthu, raizada, nishit mathur and anoop menon. with a colleague. anyway, heard some jazz/blues.the guy with the harmonica was good, though he hardly played. i had a beer, that's it. kingfishers.

anyway, we left around 11:15ish, and walked over to inox. there we watched the 1130 show of 'juno', a very nice movie about a teenage pregnancy. juno herself was cute.

saturday, i woke early, 10ish. read the paper, surfed the net. went to the gym. from there i walked across to phoenix mills and met shek and shefali for lunch at copper chimney. then we went to heera panna and window shopped for mobiles.
i went home after that, and dipu came over. we played xbox, and soon murli joined us. then dipu left.

murli and i then went to phoenix mills, where we had dinner with shek and shef at lemon grass. it was a nice dinner. good food, good coversation, and good shabab on the next table!!!
after dinner, though we wanted to go to blue frog, due to time and space restrictions, we went instead to ccd at worli. sat there till about 12.15, then walked over to the worli seaface. sat there enjoying the breeze and people, till 1. then murli and i went home, played xbox and slept around 3:30.

i was woken by our soothing doorbell at 945 am, the bai had come to 'clean'. played xbox all morning and afternoon, with dipu joining us soon enough. so much so, that we ordered lunch in and played. dipu and i from dominos, and murli from shang dynasty. i shooed them out around 6 to get ready.

had a company event u see. a fashion show, by manish malhotra. and it rocked!! i mean, the first thing i see upon walking in is the new, tall female in marketing standing in a 1 piece mini. gulp!!! then clients an their families were looking soooooo page 3!!! and then there were the models themselves. it was a good event, lots of eye candy. and so many people knew each other, and i managed to convince a big guy to become our client coz he bumped into someone he knew well, who also happened to be namby's client. for once, private banking seemed to be the pseud thing it was made out to be initially.
also bumped into freddy daruwalla again....he had walkked the ramp, and i had utterly failed to recognize him till dhruv went and asked him whether he was the nivea guy. we had an interesting conversation then after that.
i left around 10:45, took a lift with ham and his petit wife delna to charni road, and took a train home from there. i love mumbaiian weekends

epilogue:
bumped into enthu and nishit again on monday morning, as their cab overtook mine near dadar sabzi mandi en route to work
had an alumni dinner on tuesday, with jj irani at the taj mahal hotel. met dhav and kc there. saw and met some of the legendarily prominent alumni. a very social week

gymkhana khazana

another nice weekend....they make me happy
left office at 7:15 after some internal meetings....went home, spent about 20 minutes there, and we left for fort. had a quick dinner at khyber with suhail, ruchi, dipu, shek and shefali. went and watched 'michael clayton' at metro with murli joining us. got home at 2, murli spent the night, so slept aroung 3.

saturday was the d-day (wonder what it means). office finished for me at 1:30. went for lunch to moshe with aashika, jassi, manish, dhruv and chirag....where i received a rude shock when the bill was given to me as an initiation ragging. finished lunch around 4....
got home only close to 6, after shopping at zodiac, cr2. relaxed about 1.5 hours, and did some housework. left around 7:45, went to mocha, churchgate where i met up with shek, shefali, murli, suhail n ruchi. spent a nice while there, till 10ish. then i went to bombay gymkhana, fort, for a party with my ex-silo. present there were ruksh, nipa, dhruv, vodhi, sagar, shradha, od and mustu. crowd was killer. tube tops, backless dresses, boots, the works. all classy, all beautiful. met up with other colleagues there. saw clients of the company.
danced a lot. had a corona. had 6 vodkas. had a blast. god knows what time we left. took a cab with dhruv, vodhi and sagar.
digression 1: chruchgate station, thela next to it. had egg bhurji and pav. tasted damn nice
digression 2: breach candy, for some famous paanwaala....which had closed by then
got home and slept around 3.

was woken sunday by the kaamwaali. assume her name is asha. she bugs me. wakes me every sunday. curse her. watched the match. had lunch at copper chimney with shek, shef, ruchi, suhail. dipu joined in later. mom also joined in. spent an hour with her at barista. got home n played xbox. went to cinemax matunga and watched 'jumper'. walked to tibbs and had frankies. walked to ccd shivaji park and had chai. walked to dadar seaface and had overdose of sewage smells. walked home and had an overdose of walking. and now here i am, with an overdose of typing. so tata for now.

weekend warrior!!! the genuine....

well well well well WELL!!!

what a wekend it was, the weekend of 9-10 feb. i ended up in office on both days!!

we've had classes on a sunday in iim, several friends of mine have worked on weekends, i've heard them grumble and i've pitied them and felt some contempt, but this was the first time i experienced it myself. and i felt like a trooper, a slogger, a workhorse, etc. no jokes!



it all started on the wednesday before that weekend. the country head gave me some work and put me under the charge of vodhi....and looking at the work, i was thrilled. it seemed like an exciting challenge. it also seemed to be a way of making a difference. i think i was kind of wrong in these assumptions.

it was a lot of dirty work. i ended up missing the PE/RE meet at the renaissance on thursday and friday. i was one of only 7-8 people in office on saturday. that too till 7 pm. and one of two people on sunday. that was till almost 4. and it was all unexpected. the string of unexpected delays led to a string of dismay, which finally turned into disgust, i dont know exactly where.

what i basically had to do was create a template for a portfolio monitor, to be used for clients with investments of more than INR 500 million.

i thought i was done on friday evening, and was very happy with myself for meeting a deadline. office on saturday was supposed to be a 10 minute review with JH, and then on to the weekend!! well that review was postponed to late afternoon. but that was before early afternoon when we were given more work. that started the dismay. he kept asking for more from the MIS till at 7, vodhi said he had a movie to go to, so lets work tomorrow instead. he said he would pick me up from dadar at 10 am. that was that.

next morning i ended up following him to office around 10:20, reached there, had a struggle to get in since lifts werent working and door was locked. worked till 4, then i finally left. to have my first meal of the day. i was more disgusted than words could express, mostly coz the delays had been needless.



that being said, i managed to have fun as well. watched a movie on friday, mithya, after dinner at zaffran. saturday we watched fool's gold in versova, then went to club escape (a truly sad place), with a late late dinner at kareem's, bandra. and sunday was chilled, spent at phoenix mills, in front of xbox, and finally a lavish 900 per head dinner at out of the blue with murli and dipu.



finally, in epilogue, i did 2 more portfolios. they took much lesser time, but were almost equally frustrating. hopefully i'm done with that now!

weekend warrior

well, this time i had a really good start to the weekend.



i left office early, around 3:30, though it was for a meeting in yucky kalbadevi!! the meeting was ok. it got over at 4:15, and i took a cab to go to pay my reliance bill in dadar. with my luck, systems were down, so i went home having wasted money and time.



got ready, shek came over and we left via train for the iron maiden concert. we were dressed as wannabe college dudes, in three fourths, and wearing our chains and wristbands!! took a train to bandra, from where we took an auto to the mmrda grounds. our copassenger in this ride was a freddy darruwala, grasim mr. india-world 2007. seemed a down to earth guy, though he made us feel properly ashamed to be bankers!!

we reached the ground around 645. parikrama was just winding up their last 2 pieces. through coordination via smses, we met up with shaggy, kartik and basu. we also eventually met bania, butalia, soumak, kartik prasad, suchai, srini, gaurav raizada, and rohit jain. also there were venkat, bala and abhinav though i didnt meet them

maiden was awesome....played vintage pieces like trooper, fear of the dark, wasted years, iron maiden, rime of the ancient mariner, aces high, can i play with madness, clairvoyant, powerslave, number of the beast, revelations, hallowed be thy name, etc....and they had good props and costumes for diferent songs.

there was a mosh pit with people bumping into each other, girls smoking up, girls abusing and kicking guys for excessive contact. we almost caught a drumstick thrown toward us by the band, but werent able to hold on to it.



after the show shek and i went to phoenix mills and dined at copper chimney with the intent of having beer. we got home early, and i slept by 145 coz it had been a long tiring day!!

saturday i woke at 930 and read the paper, went to pay the reliance bill finally and got ready. at 2, i went to churchgate and met dipu. had some stuff to eat at croissant. then went to oxford book store. suhail ruchi and murarka joined us, and we watched american gangster in eros. nice movie, though very complicated.

then murli went to meet a school friend. suhail ruchi went shoe shopping. dipu n i walked to theobroma and had some pastries. then with suhail and ruchi we went to crossword in kemp's corner. murli joined us there and i bought 4 books. after that we went to crystal at chowpatty and the 5 of us ate like kings for a total of 350/-!!!

then after a nice walk to peddar road, we went to phoenix mills and settled in sports bar. checked out the awesome crowd at play, shot some hoops, had some beer, met raghavendra, saurabh, shatanshu, TJ, shalaut and arkaj. came home around 1ish, played xbox till 4 and slept off.

sunday we woke at 1130. went to imax wadala, lunched on some oriental shit at the food court and watched 'we own the night'. also a nice movie!!
we came home and i settled in when shek and shef arrived. after pottering around a bit, we went to tamnak thai in shivaji park for dinner. it wa nice n upscale (and expensive!), and shek made an embarassment of himself. the food and budweiser were smackalicious!!
followed up with a frappe at ccd in prabhadevi.

i finally slept at 3am. turned out to be a sleepless night. now i'm tired, but happy.
coz i just went to bkc for a meeting, and met up with rohan for an hour. i like meeting people, and rohan is a good friend. and it's been long....

another great saturday!

republic day 2008. saturday
it was a dry day, but without going into a pub/club, without going anywhere new, without stepping out of the city, i had a great time. just coz we did so much, and coz all of us were together all day.

elaboration:
i was woken at 11 am by suhail watching the adelaide match between ind-aus, which was ultimately drawn. dipu came over 5 minutes after that, so it was a nice wake up, surrounded by friends. we all took turns playing xbox while suhail and i also got ready. around 1 we (suhail, ruchi, dipu and i) went to phoenix mills, where we met up with shek and shef. for about 45 minutes the 6 of us window shopped, saw the sales and the snakelike line outside big bazaar.

then around 145-2 we had lunch at the noodle bar. this involved us doing the puzzles on the paper table mats. shek provided a hilarious moment by turning his mat over and making obscene and vulgar drawings, not realizing that the waitress was standing over his shoulder. needless to say, he hastily scribbled over it and tore the page and turned it back over!!!

then we got into 2 cabs, the 6 of us, and went to imax wadala. there, in the 3d imax dome we saw a 45 minute movie called 'santa and the snowman', dipu's choice! still, it was ok except the last 15 minutes, which dragged on. after the movie, we all had ice creams (a first) from baskin robbins, and played some arcade games, including some boxing game which was great fun. suhail and i chipped in for shek's fights!! he still lost finally though :(

then we took cabs and went to bandra bandstand, where we got off in front of SRK's house, mannat. stood there for 10 minutes while ruchi clicked pics and shek tried desperately to catch a glimpse. we then had some chaats, walked along the bandstand enjoying the cold ocean breeze, went out to the rocks, slipping and sliding on the moss (dipu the ungainly was the funniest sight!)

then we walked over to the taj land's end, sat for an hour and a half or so, had some soft drinks in their atrium, where shek lamented on the cost of each sip of the drink he took!
then we went to linking road and shopped at shopper's stop for an hour or so. i didnt shop due to my dire fiancial straits, but saw some nice stuff.

then we walked over to mcd's. here dipu left us to go home. the 5 of us ate there, then went to ccd at shivaji park. sat there till 1145-1200 when murarka joined us. shek nearly got thrown out for being too loud. sat around another half hour, then everyone went to their respective homes. murli and i walked back to dadar, a nice half hour walk. got back be around 1-115.

suhail, murli and i then played xbox till 515, then murli and i chatted a bit and finally slept at 6 am.

nice day? i think so....surrounded by my friends, from morning till morning!! that too almost all of us, almost all the time! what more can one want?

campus revisited

ah well.....after literally weeks, maybe even months, of eagerly waiting, i finally went to campus on the weekend of 11th january. i needed to go....i think it was mainly for two reasons, both conflicting



one was that i was desperately missing campus. i was missing being a student. after 7 months of monotony in work life, i wanted to go back to a familiar place, where i lived my best days, where i knew everyone around. just so i could relive those memories and be happy in the laid back lifestyle. it was to be like balm for my soul, searching for familiarity in this new life



the second reason was that i was deperately missing campus. i havent been able to get over it, over leaving it knowing i'll never have it back. it's like a physical ache, a very strong ache that sometimes threatens to overcome me. i needed to go to campus and see the 2 junior batches to know that i was now an outsider. that i didnt belong there anymore. that that's not where my friends now were. that things were different. maybe then i would get some closure...and get over it to an extent.



as i'm writing this, it's less than a week since i've returned. it's too soon to tell whether the trip served its purpose.

all i know is i had a blast. from our group, only murarka and suhail were there. while i missed the others, not havin them around helped me bond with others. actually, i cant explain it, but there was already some invisible bond between all my batchmates who turned up. we were linked together by the same campus, the same love for it, the pining for it. it was evident in the warmth we exhibited to each other, the way we hugged people we'd hardly known back when we studied there, the way everyone was smiling!



i stayed in h10, in abhishek gupta's room (1065). played table tennis. heard performances by euphoria, silk route and parikrama, as well as the rock contest. went to ganj, to eat at royal cafe and dastarkhwan, travelling by bus and vikram. went on campus walks and met alok and sonuji. heard bhat's commentary again. which was awesome! got drunk at the manfest party....



and then i felt terrible leaving campus again. in the knowledge that i was going back to office and its drudgery. and that i wouldnt return to campus for a long long time. and that when i do, things will be even more different. i felt empty....a sense of loss
but i do know this....in the last 7 months i've been earning, i've incurred some substantial expenditures. but i think the 14k i blew on going to lucknow was the best money i spent. i went to campus!!!!!!!!!

is it love?

CLASS XII
i can't even remember how i met her....
all i remember is her in winter uniform...green sweater, grey skirt, red glass of fountain coke in hand.
her friends' names flash through my mind.....atam, berry berry, rahat
her sleeping. gokul threatening to wake her with a poke, grinning wickedly. me sternly stopping him.
expressing to her my twinge of sadness at her leaving for mumbai. her holding my hand.

i remember her smile, i always thought mohini's was kind of similar.
i remember waking around 6 and driving to the airport through pouring rain to see her off, and i remember missing her coz she took the other gate.

i remember those std calls i made to her from the booth near our tuitions, vasant vihar. they used to last 4-5 minutes, and cost 80-90 bucks.

i remember akshay making fun of the frills.

most, i remember how i felt about her. no physical attraction. i just wanted to sit with her, holding her, her hands in mine, protecting her from the world. she was never pretty, but she had always been beautiful.

her making out on scribble day with some guy, no strings attached. that hurt.
her being upset at not doing well in the boards. that hurt more.
visiting her, with the 3 page letter. now thinking back, that was really stupid. but atleast i remember her house. and the long black dress she wore that day.

i miss and cherish those memories of cold winter mornings in the school bus. it would stop in front of her apartments, wheezing and grunting. i would scan the embarking crowd and catch her eye. usually she, goks and i would sit together. pitch dark outside, gloomy yellow lights on inside. it felt like we were the only beings in existence, with the fog outside cutting off the rest of the world. complete isolation. we would huddle in the cold, playing games, along with neha and manjari. those are happy memories....

where did they go??

PRESENT DAY
december 24th, 2007. i'm in goa, with my gang from L. we're having a blast, and just preparing to set off for a christmas party in a club someplace. my phone rings; an unknown number. i start working up a head of steam for these damned telecallers. and when the high pitched voice says it's a N*****a, it takes me a second to recognize her. it takes less than half a second after that for all of the above memories to rush back to me. suddenly i'm that shy, hopeful, introverted, painfully skinny schoolboy once again, clothes neatly tucked in, shoes polished, tiffin in my bag, thinking about that demi-goddess whom i revered, that 17 year old who was the coolest person i knew. 17!!! what an awesome age!!

she's almost 25 now, and i'm well into 23 myself. where have the last 7 years gone??? we lost touch while she was in mumbai, and didnt know of each other's existence till goks came across her profile on orkut. after over 6 years, we said hi again.

when i found out she was coming to mumbai and i gave her my number, i didnt really expect her to call. meanwhile i mused at the pleasures of flirting with her in case she did.
all of that fell away when she did call. she called!!!! childish, innocent joy!! this girl might like me!!! the thrill of a kid saying hi to a girl he has a crush on. no other way to dscribe that thrill of pleasure.

we met twice, for a total of 6 hours approximately. it was awkward at first. not just due to the long time, but also because i wasnt sure if she'd prefer me to be the kiddy friend she left behind and who she was immensely fond of, or if she'd rather i acted my age, a young man, fairly mature, yadda yadda. tuns out i needn't have worried. being me was ok. if anything was not ok, it was glossed over by her incessant chatting.
i have not met anyone else who could talk 4 hours out of 5 in a first meeting. and i drank in her words. i dont know how much i followed. it was just such a pleasure hearing her and also knowing she was comfortable conversing.

i think the best thing i could have done (possibly in my life) was gifting her the bouquet of flowers that i did. she said no one had done that without ulterior motives, and that was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her. maybe a slight exaggeration on her part, but man, i felt soooooooooooooooo good.

on her part, i loved that she kept calling. she had no ego, and dutifully called whne she said she would. she took initative to meet me. she called me sweetie. and like a yesteryear romantic, she asked me to call her when i got home, to make sure i was safe.

and now she's gone. and i feel paranoid about her leaving so soon after we met after so long. it's like i'm afraid of losing her again, even though i never 'had' her, so to speak.
and all i can think of are the 2 lines running from her nose to the edges of her mouth, accentuating her cheeks. her perenially half closed eyes. the 17 million watt smile. the burn weal-like stretch marks behind her arms. the giggle. hugging her (something i never did 7 years back).
and all i can think of is holding her, protecting her from the world.

she was never pretty, but she was always beautiful.

is it just a powerful memory and idea?
or can this be love?