2.55 pm

22 revolutions round the sun,

beer will help me with the 23rd one.

Hindsight is never 20-20. never will be.

try not to live for others this year.

burn some oil, get busy

bark

"Do ya like DAGS..." - Brad Pitt - Snatch


There are all kinds of them - Big bewhiskered mutts, Heavy hirsute, those skinny iniquitous creatures . You name it and you would find it on the streets of this city. Personally I have no grudges against them, but sometimes they sure can scare the shit out of me.

Particularly, this mutt, outside my lane.
Fed that bastard when he was as small as my hand, but i think their sense of smell isn't developed at that age, and now he barks at me at every single instance. He seems to be venting out his anger on the stuff that I fed him in his yesteryears.

He aint big, but is lean and can pounce with ease (Gir and Lok will agree). He is white with blobs of ochre here and there. The glittering set of vicious looking incisors, elegantly juxtaposed with the flickering evil looking claws and a shiny black nose completes the "curse of the 1st cross lane".

Well, he has never bitten me, don't know if he has bitten anyone, for that matter. But then my presentiments seem too real to not take any precautions.

I, infact, have kept a stick ready in the watchman's cabin incase he decides to devour my flesh anytime. Will think about methods of drawing up courage to go and hit him, later; as it is a bit too intimidating to imagine that scenario right now.

My fears are justified for i have had the privilege of being scratched and nibbled upon between the interlocking canines.....twice.

For the ones, who are yet to experience anything remotely related to dogs, please read on:
1. Never disturb a sunbathing dog.
2. And more importantly, never try to save a dog that is feasting in the middle of the road, with cars whistling past him. They know the traffic laws better than us and can look after themselves.
3. Make sure your family doctor is not on a Holiday. If so, make sure, you have atleast one family friend, who is a doctor (any kind...in my case was an ophthalmologist) who can administer the rabies vaccine, even on a weekend.
4. Never form an opinion about the size of the dog from 20 yards or more.

Coming back to our devil, hope the dog lovers of my lane, keep him well fed. And also that, Mrs. Maneka changes her stand on stray dogs.

_|_

You do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.......goes without saying....and I never understood this......never will.

I call people, my friends, my cousins, and my neighbours, for any event/gathering, which interests all.
Makes me think among other reasons, that the person might appreciate the gesture.....How naive could I get.
The world doesn’t work that way......and I have made it a point to remind myself this basic maxim on every occasion.

Many don’t treat you as you would want them to. And I wait patiently to return the hostilities.
But clemency has always taken over at the "moment of truth"....and I come back to the "Jaane De" attitude. That in no way means, I am a 'walkover'. Altercations are a part of me.

Be it the brash behavior of some, or the chiding remarks of the others, it hurts at that instance and I take a hard nosed vow to return the favour, but the conversion rate of all the pledges is outright pathetic.

I cannot be rude to people.....(OK...except the rickshaw wallas), and the other times when I have unpremeditatedly said anything harsh, I have resented having opened my mouth, for weeks together.

They all take me for granted, they think I cant get wild at anyone.......good they haven’t seen me angry. No....I don’t go about slitting everyone’s throats. But i sure can get wild.

I can.

Kheema Pav

Kheema Pav.....the once ubiquitous meal served at every Irani restaurant in Mumbai.

Made out of mince meat with some exotic spices, it is identified with the true mumbai flavours of the 60's and the 70's. Now now....i wasnt there then, but have heard plentiful to visualise with ease, the bygone golden era of the Megapolis.

My aai(mom) doesnt like it at all. she has her million reservations about having meat outside.
'You dont know which animal might have been slaughtered'......like i care, aai.

Dad, on the other hand, will religiously describe every aspect of the variety served at 'Olympia', 'Police Canteen', 'Bastani' and the erstwhile 'MayRose'. The fans, the chairs of the British era, the freshly baked bread, the spicy kheema served on the porcelain plates. The pictures are still vivid in his mind, i guess.

How 'Olympia' used to run out of Kheema Pav by 8.30 am in the morning.....!!!!!!!!!!
or how 'Police Canteen' used to be choc-a-bloc during lunchtime....

.........stories are a plentiful , more so on a 'oop-vas' (Day of Fasting), to satiate the growling stomach with thoughts of the desirous tomorrow.

I have no clues about the origins of the word, and i dont care, as long as the Kheema is good.
A lot of people call it 'Keema', but the places i have visited, more stress is laid on the 'h' which is as essential as the spices which go into making it.

They serve it traditionally with 'parathas'(hand rolled flat breads), but then again, the nawabs never had a chance to visit the Irani restaurants. More often than not, the restaurants bake the bread as well, so the Unique flavours are restored for each restaurant.

2 of my favourite haunt are/were:

Ideal - western railway canteen -
outside andheri (w) station.

Bastani - Near Metro..(now closed)

Caution: While having it in the above-mentioned restaurants, one has to be oblivious to the surroundings and stop worrying about the kitchen hygiene. Not recommended for hypochondriacs.

I don’t like fish, which is an anomaly in my family,
but I make up for it by relishing the pabulum for the truly blessed.

The Bread, the Slice of lime, the Kheema....

on my way to work....

I was feeling sick today.... got up to a running nose...and aching limbs.
Had to go to work (mundane life that I live)...

wanted to catch A-1 (AC bus), as I cant stand the 9.28 slow from andheri (and there is no place to stand in the train), packed like sardines we are in that locomotive.
But as usual was late to leave home.

So there I was at the bus stop...checking out the ladies...and waiting in the line for the AC bus. 10 mins hence, saw myself taking a ride to the station to catch the train.

'I cant be late, boss is coming back today'

finding your way through the swarm of people at the railway station aint an easy job at all.
One has to dodge the:

Annexure I
1. Saliva torpedoes of the spitting 'rickshawallas',
2. 'God knows from where he appeared' bikers,
3. The hawkers,
4. Street urchins,
5. 'I own the road' bus drivers.

A serpentine queue awaited my arrival, got a ticket, and then saw 'the snake' charming its way to platform no. 6.

People try to get in before 'the snake' docks itself. And then the crowd, which alights, is reminiscent of the mass exodus, which took place during partition. (what i have heard about partition)

I got in, negotiating the crowd to avoid un-creasing my trouser and shirt.

"Aah...place to sit today. "

The unwritten rule of second-class Mumbai local is, four sit where three are supposed to. Helped me earn a seat today.

But my elation was short lived, for there came this bastard who stood with his crotch right in front of my face (people here stand between the two opposing benches as there is no place to stand elsewhere in the train)... 10 mins into the ride he turned... Great...now he could fart and ruin the 'paco rabanne' effect I had on me. He didn’t. God bless his wife's cooking.

Standing near the doorway isn’t better, for you will have the dwarfs standing close to you, so close that they will for sure put milind soman, madhu sapre and the python, to shame. It’s that crowded.

You push him back, and he springs back like those stupid boxing dolls. And when they are short (with an obsession of not growing bald even when they are 80), more often than not, your shirt will have a yellow patch, which smells of mustard oil. So much for the Paco Rabanne effect.

Getting out of a train, other than the last stop, is just as difficult as getting in, for they start pushing you before the fucking train halts. And then there’s the walk, up the bridge, (no escalators here).

Like zombies we climb, not knowing where it end.
A guy tripping in front is the signal, that there aint any more steps left.

You dodge them (refer Annexure I) and there’s a Taxi stand, with ‘anacondasque’ queue. You crouch and pack yourself into one taxi, and wait for the misery to come to an end.

All this to just begin your day at work.

I shouldn’t complain, for there are people who travel from Pune (a good 190 kms from Mumbai), and back, every single day.

I am just, if not less, a midget in front of their wretchedness.

trying times....those were

The scores were out....was elated when i saw them....was happier when nab and nan scored good aswell. Excitement was short lived though, as it seems the institutes have found the arrogant side to themselves and have raised the bar.
We have been studyin towards it for sometime now. The Sessions at java green and cuppa cafe(place where they serve a pizza without cheese and call it calorie free pizza), came in good use.
the mock tests,
marching towards the centers en masse, like the herd of goats to be slaughtered.
lunch sessions where post-mortems were conducted. and religiously drawn analysis for the next test which were blasphemously forgotten, the next morning.

had a great time preparing for these exams.

Then came the real test, the call letters from the esteeemeeedddd institutes.

Was hoping that god would oblige this once.

He didnt.

kin(beer)garden rhymes

ringa ringa beerrssss.....
pocket full of cheersssss.....
hussha busshhaa....

and we all puke it out...

damn

we lost today....started off well....1 over 3 runs conceded and a couple of wickets......Dhi bowled well..but then it all started goin wrong for us...i could have taken that catch....damn y didnt i jump...have got too heavy...gave away 8 runs in one over....scored jus 1* and we lost by 6 runs....

so much for a merry chirstmas...

Decade....hence

10 years down the line.....

a humuliated australian player, who has been dropped from the team in a spectacular fashion, breaking his oath will inform the media how they(australians sportspersons) made fools out of the other countries by using performance enhancing drugs along with camouflaging drugs. and how only one of them was caught because he ate too much of fried chips, which by the way kill the camouflagin effect of the drug. he however was reinstated a year later on the basis of his performance......lol...ok so it may not happen in the said fashion....but i am so sure that one of them is gonna snap and puke away the secret.

sergio's grandson will tell the world how ferrari found loopholes and used it to their advantage for years, before 2005 season. how they flouted the rules, by throwing wads of greenbacks at some big shots, who would be dead by then.

Wasim Akram on his death bed will reveal how that he took some PED...........(performance enhancing drugs....u aint paying attention) along with his diabetes shots and so did the rest of his lethargic team mates.

there will be agents/agencies cropping up everywhere to help the B School aspirants with their form filling....right from circling the stupid OMR sheets...(dont ask me the full form)...to speedposting it.....to checking whether the institute received the piece of paper...for this thing to happen, one may not have to wait for a decade, might see it happening from next year itself.

Mumbai will have 69.5689741% of its populations staying in slums and the candidates for the 2019 assemble polls will all be locally bred slum hero's. People staying in apartments and bungalows will constitute the minority community.

India will enter into a strategic alliance with Serbia and Montenegro.

In between, China will have unleashed 5 more deadly virus on par or worse than SARS, while conducting some Chemical Warfare Weapon trials in the Guangdong District. Dont worry...none will in anyway affect India, whose citizens by then, will have developed immunity to Typhoid/Malaria and AIDS....OK i went to far.....Only Typhoid and Malaria.


As you all can see i am moving away from reality and also that my fingers are paining....so enough predictions for the day...time to meditate

team work

The Human Resource manual(the one i have) defines 'team-work' as, 'individuals working together and Cooperating within the group, especially among the acquired subsidiaries or merged parts of a corporation,to create an enhanced combined effect and achieve the over all oraganisational goal'.

does one need to learn this wicked definition to understand what teamwork is...

Absolutely Not.

one can play a cricket match against the neighbouring societies and lay a bet, to witness the panache with which the uncalled for rivalry makes an appearance .

And how the 'At War Cousins'(Dhi and Sur) for once stop swearing at each other and suprisingly egg the other fellow on or how the 'Heavy Footed slow coach'(Ra) starts sprinting faster than Maurice Greene. all this to acheive the common goal....A GLASS OF COKE. (the goals differ depending upon....the mood in the camp) and also respect of being mentioned when Cricketing topics crop up.

or even better.....Sit on the last seat of a BEST ( Mumbai public transport Bus) as i realised today.

i met Sur in the line, we got in and took the seat near the rear entrance(people usually sit there to check out the ladies who enter...i sit there to minimise my negotiating the evening traffic in the bus). Sur was sitting next to me, and the bus was moderately full when the Conducter signalled the departure with the tug on the string bell. i was emptyin my wallet for some idiotic reason and Sur was generally trying to check out the ladies out of the window. I normally am aware about the kind of people around me in the bus, but not today.

Then all of a sudden, 10 mins into our journey we heard a big thud. My first impression was that someone had fallen off the bus. but i couldnt see anyone through the rear window....maybe someone dropped his bag....well there was nothing on the road.

then i saw an old man...out of his wits....as if he had jus been transfered into this eon from the biblical times.....

then it occured to us...rather to sur....who told me that someone must have flicked his wallet or his bag...and bag it was.

After the 'post mortem' which is synonymous to the Mumbai, as Bush is to nincompoopism....Sur explained that there were 6 guys, who boarded the bus at the first stop....2 of them sat next to us....2 stood in front of the unfortunate victim...and 2 on his side. All this is near the rear entrance.

2 mins into the ride, the 2 sitting next to us, offered their seats to healthy individuals, (i mention that to suggest it was not out of respect) and stood behind the Victim. Then all of them lunged forward as if the Bus had breaked hard. And thats when they made their move. Dont ask me how the poor man didnt realise that his bag was being snatched....he realised it later when this guy standing next to him told him what had happened.

He got down, all shaken up and crossed the road on being directed by a good samaritan. Whether he was yelling or not, i donot know. But he sure was hassled.

Sur, so well versed with these harsh realities of life....told me that the good samaritan was infact part of the gang, and directed that man in the other direction(Damn it sur...u are tellin me all this now).

Hows that for a freaking pull off...!!!

Team work jus couldnt have gotten better.

.........Maybe second only to ours in a cricket match.

Aint doing us a favour

i am sure about inviting the wrath of the IIM community.

But i could not help forget the comment made by an IIM student., on NDTV.

While arguing the case for Manjunath, which i may add, hold true in any scenario, he went on to say that he was contemplating a decision to move to "CHICAGO".

He might not be speaking for the entire student community of IIM, but then nobody interuppted him as well.

His statement sounded more like a 'threat' than a comment. I absolutely stand by anyone moving out of India to pursue his/her personal goals, but when a person make himself sound like hes doing a favour by staying back, it irks me.

IIMites are truly creame de la creame of the society, but then they aint bigger than the country that they are residing in.

With all our problems, with all the corruption, with all the red tapism, the country sure is in doldrums, but it aint knocked out. I am in no way belittling the sacrifice made by Manjunath. It takes guts to stand up to all that shit, and i myself would have backed out. He has set an example for everyone, please dont make it a case study for attesting the cause of leaving this country.

But what baffles me is, had it not been an IIMite, but an average family man,(capable of getting an overseas offer at the drop of a hat) in this situation, would reaction have been the same.

An IIM community has the 'beef' to get NDTV make a show on it, i am sure it can wrestle a lot of other problems in the country.

For all you know, had Gandhi backed out at those trying times, all of us would have now been vying for a place in the prestigious IIM....Indian Institute of her Majesty.

Pussy galore

11.00 am seems aeons away. for it will be my first go at capturing the all elusive CAT(common admission test).

i have been told to chill relax, and loads of other things. i am feelin everythin but that. I may look chilled out on the outside....but gettin that shit queasy feelin in my tummy.

ozzy save me!

Mis takes

i have tried hard to learn a lesson from every mistake....but it aint easy. One has to ponder incessantly to first think what category the mistake falls in. once you are done sorting them, comes the difficult part, "WHAT LESSON DO I TAKE FROM IT".

nevertheless the point i was tryin to make is that implementing the lesson u have learnt is much more difficult that learnin the stupid lesson. i have learnt a lot of lessons, but it would have been much more meaningful had i learnt to make use of them in day to day life.nobody i know, stresses on this godforsaken fact. the pundits are under the impression that the man would use his teachings after knowing the rationale behind it. But that does not happenone could also end up interpreting the chapter in a different light and and screw their happiness up.These are some of the lessons i have learnt from this beatiful city.

a day on the streets of mumbai can teach that never argue with a lady on a public bus, no matter how wrong she is, or if u do....make sure u get down at the next stop.

Never enter a Virar local, if u dont stay at Virar...(dont know what it is, its a metaphor for MUMBAI's life,........ they all would agree)

Never look at how the hawkers make ur favourite Bhel( culinary delight of roasted rice flakes mixed with assorted sauces and chopped spices, notwithstanding the unique flavours passed on by the hands making them). All in all, never enter a kitchen of your favourite restaurent. You might puke.....u will PUKE....

Never argue after beer....argue the next day.

these are jus some of them.

Ode to Beer

It did seem like a normal sunday, except for the fact that there was no feelin of the oncomin monday blues....(jobless right now...u see).

what better thing to do then to have beer with ur pals, and to top it of, didnt have to buy any rounds as one of the miser friends found out the gratuitous side he had to himself.

Nin normally acts stingy about everythin, and the rest of us try our best to make him spend more, but a veteran that he is, he always find the most inexcusible excuses to get away with little. but that all changes after hes down four bottles of Kingfisher. the "fermented nectar" has a supernatural effect on him, and out comes a man who would pay the bill for everythin and everyone. the trouble is he doesnt drink that much that too often, but when he does, we make sure that we place a big order...its good fun.

But this sunday we werent that lucky, never the less all were out drinkin.

Sur doesnt drink but makes sure he accompanies us everywhere, hes the kind who doesnt like to miss out on anythin and wants to be the person, people would turn to, if a detailed narration of an episode is required.

Sid was down with fever and so had nothin. Sid and Nin have agreed in principle to disagree on everything....but when its beer time, the animosity evaporates.
Like always, the ones who drink chip in for the bill, so this time it had to be me and Nin.
At 00.00, after much debate on things that in no way come close to even altering an inch of our way of life, we call for the bill.....i pull out a hundred, but a hand grabbed me by the wrist.

"thaamb"(wait).....

it was Nin, he wanted to pay the entire amount, which i was not fine with(i have always wanted to pay for myself, whenever i had cash on me). Sid was also not happy, though his reason was no way close to mine. He didnt have anything to drink or eat, and he thought maybe that was the reason why Nin wanted to pay. He tried to make a joke out of it, by callin the waiter to place his order, as Nin was paying. Nin wasnt payin attention to any of Sid's crap. i paid Nin and we left the place to the schadenfreude giggles emanating from Sur. Was a funny picture. To sids rue, he vouched never to sit without a beer when in Nin's company. and we departed.

OK....so why the hell am i sayin all this....well...people say a lot of thing about how one should stay away from alcohol, blahhhhhh.....and after some mornin hangovers i did subscribe to that thought....however the very essense of beer is not about gettin high but more about the quality time one spends in its company. pros far outweigh the cons.

Talks about how one got ditched ages back start surfacing from the most unexpected guy,
.....the coward of the lot commence their speech from the most courageous stories one could have heard.....bloated, exaggerating episodes are dime a many in circle full of friends. One can be a witness to all this only when with beer.

all in all, i have had some of my best times in the Ale's proximity,

Beer saves lives!!!!!!! i have experienced it firsthand, and my friends would certainly standby that.

my first blog

i have been thinkin about my own blog for sometime now...and finally...i have created one....
i dont think so....a guy like me who can talk crap anytime of the day and have all his ten fingers intact...would have any trouble maitainin one...but shit can happen.....