So today was fun as well. I hadn’t yet gotten out of my Hogenakkal mode (see earlier post) when I got a blast from the past. Hitesh Uchil called me up, stating he’s in town and is free to meet. Now I hadn’t met him in at least 5 years and so was fairly keen on it.

I called up Vishal and got him to join in, and so he arrived home at around 17:00. Hitesh called around 18:15 letting us know he’d arrived at Forum mall and that we should head out.

We reached there by 18:30 and settled into a nice long chat at Cafe Coffee Day opposite Forum Mall. It was good catching up after years. Vishal was, infact, meeting Hitesh after to 12 years! The conversation ranged around old friends, school teachers and general news from Dubai.

Around 19:30 we moved on to Satyas for some snacks, and then from there onto McDonalds for dinner. Had a burger, and then headed back home after dropping off Hitesh and Vishal at their respective rides.

All in all, a good day. Hopefully Vishal will send me a photo to upload on here.

Yesterday some old friends (24 years and counting) and I decided to head out on a road trip to Hogenakkal Falls near Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu.

Shabbir, Shenaz, Vishal and I left early in the morning at 06:30 and came back at 20:00. It was a lot of fun, and I missed Shruti a lot throughout.

There were many funny incidents, many jokes were made, stories shared, and some booing as well.

Some incidents / jokes worth mentioning (may not make sense to all, but you can always ask me for context):

• Vishal: I saw this Chinese iPhone the other day, for only 5k man!
  Shabbir: You mean you saw a Ch(a)i-phone?
  Peals of laughter.
• Me [on seeing an actual chicken cross the road]: Why did the chicken cross the road?
  Vishal: So that it could end up in Chicken Soup for the Soul? (what???)
  Crazy laughter ensued.
• Shabbir and Me teaming up to throw half a ton of river sand onto Vishal, and him having to bathe for an hour with 4 rounds of shampoo to get it all out.
• The puncture that had as take a detour and spend 2 extra hours on our way to Hogennakal. Shabbir and I worked on it, while Vishal chilled out in the heat (lazy bugger).

There is a saying in Hindi that goes:

Teen tigade kaam bigade

In my weekend exploits, here are the teen tigade:

But there was no kaam bigade action in this story. It was all pure awesomeness.

The weekend essentially consisted of a lot of meets between us. I shouldn’t miss out mentioning Shenaz (Shabbir’s wife) and Shruti and our baby (who were missing but always on my mind).

Matches were seen, good food was had and general merriment was made. Quite a memorable weekend given that we were all spending quality time with each other (together) after years.. possibly the first time after 1997 (when Shabbir moved to India to live in Pune).

I’m looking forward to many more weekends of fun, relaxation and good memories.

.. after a long hiatus! Details soon. Let’s just say I did a bit of the below, and then some:

- Met up with an old friend
- Had an amazing 2 weeks
- Tried, tried and tried again to get my laptop fixed
- Read the City of Joy, having lost my Nick Hornby – Fever Pitch on the bus
- Stayed offline most of the time
- Slept less, and worked harder

.. aur guitar,
muhalle ki woh chatt, aur mere yaar..

And so began our 10th grade class reunion. We were grade 10, division K: 10th K. The guys who showed up were as follows: Beslin, Shine, Myself, Sunil and Sudhir. I was hoping for a larger turn out considering there were around 10-12 of us in the city at that point in time.

That aside, what really mattered was that we were there – together – after close to 9 years. It was our time once again, and we all returned to being the boys we once were. We were telling each other stories, laughing without a care in the world. Everyone around us was wondering if we were high on drugs or booze, but little did they know we were high on memories *wink*. We talked about everything under the sun – how each of us was either enjoying or plain hating our job, what we had planned for the future, how much fun we used to have in school, which professors we liked and hated (and why), different incidents which had left a mark in our mind, etc.

It was interesting to see the different walks of life each one of us had chosen, having been given the same opportunities in life.

God knows when I’ll see them again, but I do know we will always pick up from where we left off.

So this is for my girl Mayank, who has been whooping my ass all morning asking for a post. So imagine the scene where s/he is standing under my balcony and screaming, “Bunty we love you! We need another more detailed post from you!”. How can I not oblige?

So coming back to the post itself, nothing much has been happening to really talk about, and that which is happening can’t yet be written about. So I’m kind of at a loss for words.

Have been reading a lot, with Geetanjali and Old man and the Sea.

On another note, went to Mumbai over the weekend and had a blast with Manish, and also met some great people. My cousin Kavya is growing up to be a very tall lady. She is already over 2 feet tall, and is not even a year old! Here is a video of Kavya [1.2 MB, MP4] that I took this time around (you might need either Quicktime or VLC to play it).

That apart, Skype rocks my life, and yay for voice communication innovations on the internet.

So this is from a couple of weeks ago, when I was talking to my buddy Som:

Som: ……
Me: So how’s your love life coming along?
Som: I’m planning on getting a car soon..
Me: Wtf? Is this what the world has come to? Love=car? Are we in such dire straits???

The rain is working wonders on my mood. I feel alive, something I haven’t felt in a while though I’m in Pune and enjoying life per se.

Was to meet Rohan Dsa and catch up on how things are as well as review some Mithun movies (hehehehe). But since the rains are still going strong, my aunt has asked me to come back to her place and not go home ( I live near the river, and it just might flood). Maybe Hemir will also come this weekend, and then we will have a blast.

Man am missing Atlanta and GATech, thanks to Nammy. She called today morning, and we spoke for all of 4 minutes. But it was enough (for now… so don’t stop calling, Nammy *wink*). I was singing “Dil dooba, dil dooba, teri akhon mein meri mehbooba..” (translates to “I lost my heart as it drowned in your beautiful eyes“) after the call *wicked grin*. Nammy is leaving Atlanta and moving to Chicago for good. Now I will have to rope in Chicago on my visit to the US. New places, more fun!

That apart, today has been a long day. My uncle’s house in Mumbai (which was under very heavy rain for two days) was under 5 feet of water, and he lost almost everything he owned. He was close to tears on the phone. He is 60 years old, and an ex-army man. I’m glad everyone is safe though. And I’m proud of him, because though it took him 8 hours to walk from Santacruz to Andheri (usually a 10 minute ride), he did it without a hitch and also managed to save two children from being sucked into an open man hole (while being in 4 feet of water) and almost lost his own life in the process. He personifies courage in my eyes.

I too had a small loss in the incident, losing all my collected books which I had kept at his house. Hopefully one day I shall manage to get them all back one by one. But that’s a story for another day.

All in all I’m exhausted, both physically and mentally.

And so I did go to Mumbai this weekend. Had a long list of things planned. This is a partial list:

- Meet Hemir (friend from Atlanta, and also an ex-roomie)
- Play loads with Kavya (my seven month old cousin sister)
- Meet Anuradha (friend of a friend)
- Collect important papers from my uncle’s place
- Shop a little bit
- Inventory books and other things still in Mumbai
- Get my camera charger so as to allow some picture taking
- ……

As you can see it was meant to be a packed weekend. Now I will show you and updated version with what was accomplished and what was not:

- Meet Hemir (friend from Atlanta, and also an ex-roomie)
- Play loads with Kavya (my seven month old cousin sister)
- Meet Anuradha (friend of a friend)
- Collect important papers from my uncle’s place
- Shop a little bit
- Inventory books and other things still in Mumbai
- Get my camera charger so as to allow some picture taking
- ……

The reasons for not meeting the people on the list but managing everything else has to say something for my people skills. Well not really, since there were genuine issues which lead to us not meeting up. These will be expounded later.

Oh and btw, I did go to Shoprite in Mulund. Awesome place, that!

So I had this really mellow yet fun trip to Buffalo this last weekend, and it was nice to hang out with Saurabh and Arul. We just chilled out at home for the most part. Also played some cricket, watched some Mash and cooked a bit.

Then I got back in town, met up with some amazing people whose shared similar reading interests. It was fun, and then this friend tells me last night at around midnight that she is on her way to Chattanooga in the morning. I jumped at the idea of driving to Chattanooga to see Jaro, and asked if she was fine with it. She said yes, God bless her soul. So I dropped a mail to Jaro and asked him to call me in the morning to wake me up and also let me know if it was okay to drop in on such short notice. He said sure, and called at around 8:45.

So I got to Chattanooga and am here for the day, and will be leaving in about an hour and a half (7pm). So while I was here, we all went for an Indian lunch to this Indian Taj Mahal place, which was quite good except that we were kind of late and the food was a little cold but still had good taste to it. Got out of there to come back to Jaro’s office. Met his dad, and brother among others. It’s such a cool place to work. Met Don too.

Then Jaro and me went downtown for a bit, and he showed me the town where he grew up. It was fun, and we got coffee from this really cool coffee house in the Art district, The Rembrants Coffee shop. I had their Iced mocha and man was it good! Still sipping the remnants *slurp slurp*. Man now I’m kind of sad I didn’t come here to work. But it’s all good in the end.

That’s it for now.