The AP Chronicles

I was reading this post earlier today and got to thinking of my own (solitary) experience of living away from home. Sometimes I really can’t believe I spent almost 2 years there...

After just under a year of working with my first company, I got an opportunity to work with a fairly well-established Pharma OTC company, but the posting was in Vijaywada, HQ of Krishna (a district located on the east coast of Andhra Pradesh).
While I quite liked the setup of my first company not to mention the job itself, I wasn't really rolling in the dough, so I took the new job. The thought of moving out of home, living and working in an alien city was quite intimidating and continued up until the time I boarded my train to Vijaywada from VT station.

The folks had come to see me off and I remember feeling distinctly out of sorts as the train started to pull out of the station. As I numbly waved my goodbyes to them, I had half a mind to just jump off and tell Dad that this was a huge mistake and I didn’t really wanna be away from home. As their shapes started to blur with the distance I lit up a smoke and drew deeply. Gave myself a mental pep talk - "Listen... you're almost 24... There’s tons of people who've left their homes at far far younger ages, traveled greater distances than you for education... work.... This is an experience. You're getting to see a different part of the country... Think of this as an Adventure!!"
And that last line, dear reader, kept me going for the 20 or so months that I was there...

My flat was located kinda on the outskirts of the city. It was a 1 BHK affair... some 600 feet or so. HUGE by Bombay standards and I used to pay a rent of Rs. 1000 (!!). OK let me explain coz there was a tradeoff... One, the location as I've mentioned meant lowish rents anyway. Second and most importantly, I was told I could be shifted to any empty flat as and when the current flat I was currently in, got sold off. Since I really didn’t have much junk of my own and was on the road for like 20 days a month, I figured the deal was a good one and took it.
*Course the deal came back to bite me in the a$$ shortly...

Summers were a bitch in AP. Temperatures used to routinely hit 45 degrees. And when on the odd occasion, the mercury would touch 48, then the locals would go, "Oh today it’s really hot." (?!?!) Never have I so craved the humid heat of Bombay more.
Sometime though, it'd get a little scary. I remember touring a place called Bhadrachalam in the peak of summer in '03. The temperature was a skin melting 51 degrees! I was so dehydrated before my meeting with the local distributor, I decided to stand in the shade of a nearby 'Cool Drinks' stand and have a Goli Soda (btw this is one of things I sorely miss about small town India) to cool off. As I'm replenishing my body with the fluids it so desperately needed, I saw this slightly older chap walking by and after a few feet of passing the shop, dude just collapsed! Several bystanders rushed to guy and carried him off the road into the shade. By then my sales guy called me in to meet the distributor. About an hour later, we got done and stoked by my previous Goli soda, I decided to have one more. The crowd that had gathered before had gone by now, but I asked the vendor if Fainting Dude was ok. He muttered something back, which my colleague turned to me and quietly translated, "Saar, he has expired..."
I decided then that two summers were quite enough for me in this place.

*Shortly after this trip I came back into Vijaywada. It had been a tiring train journey. I had been on the road for about 17 days at a stretch and when I got off the station, I'd made up my mind not to haggle with the rick guy about the usual overcharging they'd do. I just wanted to get home. But no motor ricks so I had to get into one of those cycle ricks which I hate coz I'm a big built guy and I can’t stand the thought of someone peddling my fat ass for a good 5 kilometers. But no choice and at that point I didn’t really care so sat in and headed home. Reach my building and find the elevator is out of order, so I trudge up 3 flights of stairs. I tried to open my door but it wouldn’t open. I hear someone coming up the stairs and its my neighbor who says my stuff has been shifted to another flat in a different building of the complex! So I go to the office and collect the keys to my new flat which is located in the 'A' Wing on... wait for it... the 7th futhermucking floor! So yet again its WALK WALK WALK up 7 flights of stairs!
That was NOT a nice day... no sirree.

I wish there was enthralling stuff to write about my time in AP but being located in Vijaywada meant that the only "exciting" things to do was going for weddings in my distributors' or team members' families (immediate or extended), or some puja associated with Diwali or Pongal or somesuch.
But the standout memories of the entire AP experience were:-
- While traveling upcountry in an area with heavy Naxal presence, our bus was pulled over and a thorough search was carried out of every passenger and their luggage for grenades and firearms.
- Visiting the beached submarine, INS Kursura, at Vishakapatnam's Ramakrishna beach. I now have major respect for the (small built) dudes who'd spend weeks under the waves in these metal tubes. Must've bumped my head like 10 times in those cramped confines.

- Being told my "worth" at one of those afore-mentioned weddings. "Saar... you're very young and holding such a good post in a company like ____. You'll get atleast 50 lacs from girl's side!... Should we find a good Andhra girl for you saar??!"

- Got 'picked' up for a one night stand (yup... first time ever!) in Vizag. Hah! Who knew that an evening, which started out with a innocent drink at the bar, would end the way it did! Oh and she was an older woman too. OK so while not a cougar, she still older than me. Aah so many fantasies fulfilled in one night hehe

By the end of Dec '03 though, I'd had it with the place and the job. So one fine day, I packed my bags, mailed off my resignation to the Hyderabad office and headed back to Bombay. I still think of that time in my life as one big adventure. An experience that came squarely under Life Lessons.

I don’t really miss that place - except that sometimes... I do...

57%

Couple of weeks back, I'm waiting at one of those ridiculously long you'll-be-rotting-here-till-the-end-of-time signals, when I see a woman, by the side of the road chatting away on her mobile, walking towards my general direction.

She walks past my rick and eventually goes out of sight. But I'd stopped watching midway... more interested in seeing my fellow wait-ers at the signal gawking at this woman. Pretty much every dude including the 2 guys on a bike next to me and my own rickshaw-wala had their eyes fixed on her. Couple of reasons for this - A) She was good looking. Not a spectacular, drop dead gorgeous specimen but a decent looker nonetheless. B) She had the kind of clothes and makeup on that suggested she might be a model/actress heading to/from a shoot.

The moment she passed us and was reasonably out of earshot, the pillion rider whispers something to the biker and they both let out a smirky laugh. Just got me thinking of how juvenile Indian men can really be. I mean its kinda pathetic but the majority (and I'm talking strictly about the urban and reasonably well educated category) of these men just don't have it in them to be classy about such matters.
Some weird Pavlovian thing I guess... Woman walks by... Tongues hang out.. and you don't have the ability to do anything nor the willingness to remain quiet, so you pass nasty comments.
I like my women as much as the next guy but I just can't stand just how crude some guys get when it comes to women and describing them.

Speaking of juvenile, back in school, and you know how hormonally raging teens can get, breasts were a matter of serious and utter (udder?!) fascination for all of us. So in typical teen-sian words, one would compare sizes and in descriptives which ranged from, "Arre dekh uske 3 litre ke..." to "Usko AMC bulatey hain... Aarey Milk Colony... hahaha..." to the most inane one (with the requisite hand gestures) I've heard in all my years, "Dekhe kya uske?!! Kya mast ball-beel hai!"
Someone please enlighten me as to what the fuck a Beel is. Also is it only me or do others find it cringe-weird when Indian men refer to breasts as balls???

After doing a quick read thru on the above post, its a little more obvious why this website believes what it does... Bah!

X fest

Couple of weeks ago I was doing my usual routine of trolling the torrent sites checking out what's new in the music world and randomly scrolled down to the movies section of a particular site and was stunned to see a print of Wolverine available for download.
From a numbers perspective, there were 35,000 seeders and 65,000 leechers!

I'm not averse to the wide wonderful world of Internet piracy but please please P L E A S E save the Wolverine for the theatres. The Adamantium clawed X Man deserves the big screen treatment and if initial reports are true, the wait will be well worth it.
He certainly has, for the longest time, been a fan favorite with the male readers, but the ladies too have taken a real shining to Wolvie. Altho methinks that has a lot to do with Hugh Jackman's portrayal of the character.

While I am excited to see the Logan/Wolverine backstory (this is a prequel to the series), I am also kicked about seeing another personal favorite Remy LeBeau a.k.a Gambit who I think is the coolest X Men character after Wolverine. I hope Taylor Kitsch has done justice to the character.

Today is the official release date for the movie in the US. Can't wait till it hits our shores!

Gambit: You know it's a bad sign when I'm the voice of reason

Badshah Dildo

I been hooked onto reading this for the past few days. It's a blog that's claimed to be written by a player in the Kolkata Knightriders team.
Some hysterically funny stuff which I believe is being ghostwritten by someone who posesses a far sharper wit than any of the Kolkata Knightriders I should think...


P.S. - The title is the blog writer's reference to KKR owner Shahrukh Khan lol

The Way of Zen

After seeing a lot of it on Life, I am slowly trying to sift thru the enigma that is Zen.

Here's a good place to start if you're interested...

#28. Time an Egg

Came across these while I was trolling... Barney's reasons to have sex (and its pretty obvious which ones he has contributed) just kill me :D
For those unenlightened souls, I'm referring to the show How I Met Your Mother or as i like to call it the slightly dirtier version of F.R.I.E.N.D.S
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/how_i_met_your_mother/community/50_reasons/index.php

And what's happening with you?

The need to post finally awoke in me but at the same time I didn't feel like putting any effort into the process of it all so due apologies for the scattered nature of the post...


So yes yes... I am well and truly alive. Just underground not dead. Not that I've been busy with work or anything... just haven't been in a mood to write. I guess nothing too interesting has really happened which warranted a post. While this sort of break has happened in the past, this time around I even quit reading the other blogs I usually follow.
I've caught up on all of them in the past couple of days and there are some major upheavals which have happened in my fellow bloggers' personal and professional lives. To them I say chin up and you'll ride out the wave soon enough. There's an almost karmic way to these things.

Speaking of profession, being jobless is a freakin' task! It was fun to begin with... vacationed a lot and then bummed (and still bumming) once back home. But that vile corporate slave side of me is now beginning to twitch just that wee bit. Shouldn't be too hard to stamp that out but having nothing to do will keep this twitch festering for a while I guess.

For those curious, my new path of choosing is the creative world - I am training to get into voice-overs, dubbing... possibly radio jockeying if that opportunity presents itself.
Any tips/suggestions/heads-up with regard to this field would be greatly appreciated.

Went to Goa couple of weeks ago and had a trip that was in equal parts enjoyable and a trifle bit annoying. Enjoyable for obvious reasons (its Goa after all... sun... sand... sea... ice cold beer) and not-so-obvious ones (it was a road trip so really had fun driving K's big ole Ford Endeavor). Annoying because I was off meat (Lent was on) so as you can well imagine, I was sitting in places like Britto's and Martin's eating bloody vegetarian sadness while my glutton friends stuffed their faces with all that nice beef chilly and lamb and fish and crab.
So I've been indulging since midnight last night in what can only be termed as a food and drink orgy at various places. 'Course my poor tummy is paying for it now but maaaann its been worth it :D oh and Happy Easter to y'all.

Then there's that sorta colourful yet mildly grey area of "the relationship". Don't quite know what to make of that particular situation. I guess we both have been mature about how we should tackle it, given our respective circumstances. Still it would've been nice to have had a lesser number of obstacles than we currently do.
I know you'll read this eventually and just want to say I'm hoping for good things if and when they happen :)

What else?! Oh right... there was a pretty amusing incident which happened when we were hanging in Zenzi a couple of nights back. The 'we' were the Madman, the Miner, the Banker, Shutterbug, Alex and me. There were a few drinks going down and general conversation and banter were flying around. Now the boys (which is everyone except Shutterbug) were goofing around while Shutterbug excused herself and headed to the little girls room.
She comes out a while later and tells us she met this girl who was quite distraught. The young lady had been setup on a blind date with a guy she referred to as "someone who is old enough to be my uncle if not father". Shutterbug being a kindhearted soul comforted the poor thing and then headed back out to our table. She mentions the incident that transpired in the loo to the boys. We of course decided that the maiden needed rescuing.
So after much cajoling from us, SBug heads to the outer area and does the whole fake "Oh my God!! Fancy meeting you here! Its been ages... where have you been??" After an understandable minute of confusion, the bulb goes on over that girl's head and she plays along.

She then comes in and joins us where lots of bitching happens about her date and how she's having such a terrible evening and that even a rescue from rank strangers was totally welcomed by her.
Anyway one thing led to another and since the fellas were in a mood, even the date was invited to our table where all sorts of stories were fed to him about our origins ("Oh three of us are college mates who havent met in 4-5 years... he's a business acquaintance... She's his cousin" blah etc yada). Post which the gang (Alex in particular) proceeded to take the ever livin' mickey outta the guy. Safe to say that dude was in as much misery as we were in mirth.
But a fun night with more laughs than originally intended!

Who is reading this blog?
OK so I'll admit that after almost a year and a half of blogging, the curiosity has got to me. I want to know the number of people who actually read this blog. Being geographically inclined, I would like to know where you're at but only if you feel comfortable about sharing that info. So drop a comment if you read my blog of infrequentness (aah i know its not a word but hey its my blog)

Lastly, here's a really nice tune thats been playing on loop for the past few weeks. I have made most of my friends listen to it and I think you, like them, will quite enjoy this song. It's called Do Dil and its by a Paki band called Noori. This is their first ever song (never got recorded tho) and they've retained the original composition as it was, when created some 13 years ago! Some nice guitar work and the two man vocals complement each other and contrast in just the right amounts. Enjoy!



Peace out.

Recipe for a fine evening

a.k.a Good Idea # 517

Ingredients:-
Maryjane - the good kind
Candles - a whole bunch of 'em
Matches
*Woman (optional)

Method:-
Shut off your lights...
light them candles around the room...
spark up the spliffs...
and listen to this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxhRnQffeRQ over... and over... and over...

*And if you're with your woman, then do as Satch does it in the above link \m/

Year of the Ox

A month into the new year and I figure at least a cursory attempt must be made on a "New Year" post. It seems to be the done thing in Blogosphere and since I was (almost) never one to buck the bandwagon, let's get the ball rolling on this one...

Said bandwagon usually stops first in Nostalgia-ville and thus we must take a look back into the past. The 12 months that have gone by are kinda blurry. But that's more to do with me poor memory more than anything else. So I'm just gonna put down those events which were more significant than most. And since I've written about those things across these pages, I suppose this is more like a quick summary of this blog as well for the year gone by.

Speaking of the blog, I started writing a lot more this year. OK I suppose a single post in '07 doesn't really constitute as less writing for that year but let's not get into semantics... After being re-introduced to the world of blogging via this gent's other blog, I started to explore my own writing skills. While I don't think I'm gonna win the Weblog Awards in a hurry, I'd say that this has grown to become a place where I seek comfort by venting about things important to me. Clearly some of them are topics that not many others really give a fuck about :) That said, it is quite gratifying and humbling to have the (small) number of readers I do. Their readership says a lot about their loyalty, bias and dare I say good taste (oh come on... if I don't throw it in here, who will?!!) For the statistically inclined, that's an average of 0.08 posts per month in '07 to about 2.58 in '08. A fair jump considering I only started writing halfway thru last year.

Most of '08 was dominated by work related issues. In previous posts, I've mentioned how I'd been struggling to carry on with what I'd been doing the past 4 odd years. Finally as they say, paani sar ke upar chad gaya... A lot of that had more to do with frustration at myself than anything else. Should have upped and quit a lot earlier. But finally towards the end of the year, the deed was done. Without a clue of what to do next... The answer to that question would present itself (somewhat) as the year ended.

A few posts were dedicated to writing about crushes. There were times when I thought the resulting depression of these unfulfilled infatuations would take me under. Fortunately they didn't and I have come to discover over the course of these that I am more susceptible to these things than I'd initially thought. On the flip side, I think all my suspicions of having a rhino-like hide are quite on the money as far as me getting over these crushes is concerned. Or perhaps that damn cliché about time healing all wounds might just be true...

2008 is also the year I hit 30. I expected to feel a lot more but it gave me a case of the blues for maybe half a day just prior to the "event". I figured that I could either continue to mope or look back (and forward) to better things. By then my intention to quit my job and travel at the end of the year had pretty much been firmed up. So better things were definitely on the way...

There's something to be said about the calm before the storm. A week prior to my departure to Thailand, political trouble, which was brewing for some time, escalates into this major conflict involving the current ruling party and the army. From what was a relatively peaceful protest against the PM, suddenly there were thousands of PAD supporters marching the streets, shutting down the airport and in several instances unleashing violence in different parts of Bangkok. Quite obviously I was mighty pissed off against this bunch of idiots 2000 miles away ruining my travel plans. And then four days later, 26/11 happened... I wrote two posts on it (here & here) and won't write any more since this is my way of dealing with it. I can only give thanks to the fact that no one dear to me lost their life in that tragedy.

November though also had some good news in the form of my nephew. He is quite the noisy lil bugger keeping his mum up late into the nights these days. But there's nothing to beat that cheeky lil grin he will bestow on you if he is feeling particularly magnanimous. And of course a little more than a week later, I boarded a plane to start off on my vacation. The idea was to tour a decent bit of South East Asia, take in the local sights, sounds, cuisine and culture. My base was Singapore from where I travelled to KL, Cambodia, Bali and Melaka. The list would have been longer with Bangkok and Koh Samui but well that's how that cookie crumbled...

Did a lot of soul searching about the job situation on my travels. It finally came down to doing something in the creative arena. But what exactly... I was unsure about. For probably the last three weeks of the trip, serious consideration was given to make a move into copywriting. And its funny how sometimes things just come together as quickly as they do. Next thing I know I have more than a sure idea of what I wanna do. The best part is that it didn't fill me with any kind of dread like copywriting did. There are big freakin' butterflies in my stomach but they're more of the anticipatory kind of butterflies. I am actually excited about this and I hope it will get me somewhere... A lot of this is due my friends in Singapore - Pipsqueak and her hubby, 100 Pipers. Despite the fact that they don't read this blog, I just want to say thanks in a public-ish forum and promise I will mention y'all in my thank-you speech when I collect some award :)

It's safe to say that 2009 will be a turning point in my life in more ways than one....

P.S - Just want to say a BIG thank you to all my readers. I'll be first to admit that there are only a few random flashes of inspired writing amongst a lot of personal mediocrity. Despite that, y'all keep dropping by and share this part of my life with your own. And for that I am very very appreciative.

P.P.S - To Those-We-Have-Not-Spoken-About -- It's been a very interesting ride thus far and let's see what '09 brings...

Travel Travails - ५

The end of my S E Asian sojourn was fast approaching. Where had all the time gone?? About 2 weeks before I was to leave Singapore, a few friends suggested we take a trip together. They'd been hankering to get out of the city/country for a while but weren't able to follow thru on their plans.
But this time, things came together and we decided to head to Melaka, located on the west cost of Malaysia. The plan was to cross the border (hah! first time ever I crossed the border between 2 countries - by road anyway) into the Malaysian city of Johor Bahru and then hire a car and drive about 225 kms to Melaka.

First things first, the roads in Malaysia are fan-freakin-tastic! I love to drive but Bombay as a city doesn't let you truly soak in the pleasure of the experience. No such thang on the drive from JB to Melaka. We took turns driving the 2.5 hour journey. The lush greenery of the Malaysian countryside was soothing and pleasant company all thru the ride.

Once in Melaka, I was hit by the same feeling I got when I visited Simla the first time. A quaint almost village-like atmosphere prevailed in many parts of the town. The roads were barely big enough to allow two-way traffic but everyone seemed to manage just fine. In Melaka there is a canal with a bridge going over it. It splits Melaka into the new part of the city and the older historical section of town. We were staying in this older side in an area called Jonker Walk.
Jonker Walk is this one road that closes off after 5 pm every weekend for the evening/night street market. There are plenty of lively food stalls, bars and cafes. This particular time of the year was even more festive as the 70th birthday of the head of the ruling Royal family had just rolled by. So every evening there was this carnival like atmosphere that prevailed starting from early evening till the wee hours of the morning.
As you can see, the colour red was in abundance in the streets. Lanterns and pretty lights gave a warm red orange glow which added to the celebratory feeling of it all. There were mini parades that went up and down the street. School kids who looked like they were some sort of marching band, dancing lions and various rituals were being conducted at what looked to be temple like structures.

We even saw some Bollywood-style dance classes being held in a few of the buildings along Jonker. Probably has something to do with Shahrukh Khan being recently conferred the title of Datuk (similar to the British knighthood). Apparently they love Hindi films out there - with Shahrukh, Salman and Saif being the hot favourites amongst the Malays.

The following day we decided to take in the sights of the city. Melaka is primarily known for its museums. There's like a dozen of them within a one square KM distance. We saw a couple which was nice enough but after a while (for me anyway), its case of "seen one seen all". But it was quite lovely walking around the town. It was slightly misty in early half of the day. Weather was nice and cool. Quite a pleasant walk along the canal watching the occasional tour boat passing by with kids laughing and waving frenetically and you just can't help smiling and waving back yourself. Walked some more thru the town visiting the famous Christ Church, the replica of the Sultan's palace, and seeing so many of the afore-mentioned museums (from only the outside of course).
We stayed in Twenty Guesthouse (an unusual and abstract name, I initially thought - turns out that's the plot no. on which the building is located). When we'd booked our rooms, I was slightly apprehensive becoz 20 seemed a tad too backpackerish for my liking, what with common shared bathrooms but heck I was on vacation and we wanted to stay in the middle of the hustle and bustle. Turns out the place was actually pretty cool.
It was basically a home whose various rooms were converted into guestrooms. Very basic rooms - an almost big enough bed (I'm 6' 1" so most beds for me are almost big enough), A/C, and no TV. But it suited us just fine. The majority of the house was made of wood so every so often those wooden floors would creak loudly when someone climb the stairs which were located near our rooms or if people were walking on the floor above. One night, I think the group living above us probably decided to play catch or something, coz the floorboard were creaking like a mofo! Fortunately that lasted for only 15-20 mins.
Someone in their review on one of the travel websites had mentioned about staying in 20 which they liked a lot. Their only gripe was the loud sounds of Chinese karaoke being belted out from a nearby building. I laughed heartily when I read that article. Sometimes these things have a karmic way of getting back at you.

So of course both nights we heard some dude who obviously thought he was the Chinese Richard Marx singing with truckloads of passion and sorrow (or maybe that was just me). Which I wouldn't have minded as such other than the fact that he was a bit tone deaf! Fortunately we walked into our rooms at about 2am and the singing got done in some 30 odd minutes. But it bloody well woke me from my sleep at like 10 am the following.
I mean I'm a karaoke fan but maaaaan this guy took the cake!

And so this glorious journey comes to end. I will leave for Bombay in less than a week. Saw so many new places, met so many new people, took in the sights, sounds and culture of different countries.
I feel weary from all my travels. But it's a good kind of weary...

While I am certainly not an expert on these places I've written about, I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.