Sitting alone in my guest-house office, sipping 10 Pipers mixed with ‘Real’ Guava (even as the two fluids so totally refuse to mix – the scotch sits atop the denser juice), let me wonder how the year passed by.

I saw my best friend Tota getting married to my best friend Maina but didn’t feel too great about it when it was all happening.

I went riding a Bullet all over central India with another best-friend Tiwari for a week and felt great about it – we swam naked in rivers and bathed naked under hand-pumps, negotiated with corrupt cops, found Amitabh Bachchan’s house in Allahabad, saw one tenth of a tiger, shagged at the Taj Mahal and rowed a boat in Benaras.

I got myself a DSLR and went to Sikkim where I saw snow for the fist time; and snow-fall.

I went to Ladakh with another best-friend to see snow for the second time in my life. We rode a ravishing red coloured Bullet all over the high-altitude Ladakhi roads, over snow, sand and pebbles. We fell sick but survived. We fagged sitting at the mesmeric Pangong and clicked pictures of the adorable gulls.

I went to Bangalore and had beer with Jar, Munni, Taploo and ended up meeting a girl whom I was supposed to marry and whom I never married. I missed my train to Chennai and yet reached the good old city to meet LoLy and to see how my insti was doing.

I found Ms Short-Story in a book-shop in Bhubaneswar and became friends with her. She remained my only friend for as long as I lived in the town.

I took mummy, papa and Sweety to Meghalaya and let the moist greenery of the region take over our lives.

I saw the Jagannath Rath Yatra in Puri and the wheels in Konark.

I ran my first half-marathon in Hyderabad and bought my first sports-bike (bicycle).

I ran into strangers in Indore and with some of them, paid a visit to a dance-bar for the first time. And then with them and others, I drank and explored the city.

I rode 500 Kms on my bicycle from Manali to Leh (yes – Ladakh again) in eight days and found two friends from London on the eighth day with whom I drank and talked about life for as long we remained in Leh. And then I rode my bike to Khardung La and came back alive.

I quit smoking.

I ran my second half marathon in Delhi and spent the evening with the hottest girl I had ever been with, in my life.

I got transferred to Ahmedabad, went to Mount Abu and ran my third half-marathon in Vadodara. And then I took a jeep to see wild lions in the jungle of Gir.

I went to Udaipur to attend the second marriage of the year and met Tota and Maina for the first time since their marriage. And finally I felt good; and happy. And then I ruled the Udaipur Palace for few hours.

I went to Mumbai for my family re-union and swam at the Khasid Beach. I sat in Leopold wit a girl and her friend and emptied an entire pitcher all by myself and felt jealous of Shantaram when I did that. Oh of course, I read about forty books this year.

And as the year ends, I have found someone who thinks she loves me. The only problem is, I don’t know what I think. 2010 should be crazier. May God keep me sane.

PS: Happy New Year guys. I love you all because you care to read.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Tweet This Post

Filed under: general | 22 Comments »

For the first time, I actually worked on a theme and with models (read: my colleagues) who posed and put on expressions as I told them. And no, we don’t usually dress like this if that’s what you are thinking.

Which one do you like the best by the way?

PS: clicking on any pick will take you to the Flickr link for the same (just in case you felt like commenting and all that)

Popularity: 2% [?]

Tweet This Post

Filed under: snaps | 2 Comments »

I had never imagined that the first car that I would get to drive in Ahmedabad was going to be a 20 (yes – twenty) year old Maruti 800.

Singa and me were stuck in office till late night yesterday working on Christmas over some vague shit that had dropped at the last moment. Thank you Santa. Coincidentally I happened to have put on a t-shirt that proclaimed in pink coloured bold fonts: ‘Shit happens’. I mean think about it, I had booked tickets for 8 folks for the evening show of 3 idiots but I myself couldn’t go for it. Nor could Singa. I even had to ask my driver to pack for the day because I had no clue how long the work was going to take.

Finally when work got over and I was still wondering on the logistics of my night stay, Karnavati – a colleague, came back to office after watching the movie. He told us that the first half was really good while the later half a little jhelaaoo. And then he lent me his Maruti because my guest-house was 25 kms away and there was absolutely nothing you could find to commute to that place at late hours. It was late hours. It was 11 by the time we had dined. So it was rather sweet of Karnavati to actually catch an auto back home for himself.

So yeah, I drove the 20 year old car from my office in Ahmedabad to my guest-house in Gandhinagar – a distance of about 25 kilometers, at about 11:30 in the night. The car did not have a rear view mirror by the way. The whole experience looked so fragile that in spite of running on a highway, I kept the speed somewhere between 45 to 50 kph and definitely did not exceed 60 at any point of time. Believe me, I felt like one of those 80 year old grumpy ladies whom you sometimes see driving 100 year old cars at 10kph on expressways who curse everyone that overtakes[1]. Believe me, I felt great.

PS: It’s 12:30 PM and I am off to Ahmedabad on the same car to catch the afternoon show of 3 idiots today with Singa.

[1]I know you see them only in movies but so be it.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Tweet This Post

Filed under: events | 4 Comments »

Let me tell you something. It feels great to sit in Leopold and sip beer after you have read Shantaram. When I sat there a few days back with Sikka and talked about how cruelty meant different things to different people, I knew I was Lin and I wished she were Karla. Just like Karla would have done, she had dragged along a friend of hers, who – if you ask me, got more bored than he deserved to.

I was in Mumbai from Friday to Tuesday because my parents planned to be there in the same period. Subbu has taken up a job in Mumbai. Since Sweety was free for the time being, she came over too. Subbu is my bhai and Sweety my behen. So you see, this trip to Mumbai after ages wasn’t just about my fantasies of being Lin – it was also about being together with both my siblings and ma & papa after a really long time – after three years I guess. Rarer than that, it was about watching a movie together with them and actually liking it at the end of it (Avatar).

The trip was also about many more things. It was about showing up at Robo’s Malad flat in the very first night of the trip and finishing can after can of Fosters and discussing how fucked up a place Mumbai was, especially when one wanted to go running in the mornings.

It was about standing with Til at the Vile Parle station and creating and recording music on the platform, bang in the middle of all the chaos. I sometime wonder why Til doesn’t care to meet any of our common friends in Mumbai – like Tota, Maina or Sadhu. I would never know.

This trip was about swimming in and shagging under the clam waters of the clean Kashid beach. Kashid beach is about hundred and fifty kilometers away from Mumbai and if you live in the metro, you should definitely escape there some time. I escaped to this lovely clean beach with my family and my uncle and aunt and my two baby cousins. I still remember what chachi told us while we were returning back to Mumbai on the rented Scorpio. She asked us all to find a solution for an old woman who had two daughters – one who sold rain-coats and the other who sold sun-screen lotions. The old woman’s problem was that every time it was cloudy and raining, she felt sad for the daughter who sold sun-screens and every time it was too sunny and bright out there, she felt sad for the other daughter who sold rain-coats. Was there a solution to the old woman’s worries? It took me some time, but I finally cracked the right answer.

This trip was about driving Subbu’s ek laakh ki bike from Thane to Kandivali. It was about finally paying a visit to Tota & Maina in their flat and annoying everyone with band-baaza-giri with Maina’s synthesizer and feeling pretty much at home. Sadhu had come over at their place as well. When Sadhu noticed Tota trying to match on his mouthorgan, what I was creating from the synth, he told Maina – ‘when I had seen these two guys for the first time, that’s what they had been doing – gaana  bazaana’. For an instant, it felt like I was back to Sarayu – my first hostel in IIT – where I had met Tota for the first time. And in an instant, I realized why some relationships can never end.

This trip was about running into an insti junior when I went to board my bus for Ahmedabad and telling him how life was a constant fight irrespective of what decisions you made in life and how I loved my life irrespective of whatever fight there was in it.

And oh by the way, the solution to the old woman’s worries was to think about the daughter who sold rain-coats when it rained and to think about the daughter who sold sun-screens when it was sunny.

__

Some pictures clicked during this trip (other than the current header):

Baby Cousin 1 – Disha

Baby Cousin 2 – Yashvi

Behen

Bhai

Popularity: 2% [?]

Tweet This Post

Filed under: snaps, travel | 10 Comments »

…who were sexually exploited in childhood.

This is for a research that my friend is doing in Delhi. If you are one of them or you know one of them, see if you can help Nikita. Check this post of hers.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tweet This Post

Filed under: general | 3 Comments »

Location: Elephanta Caves – Mumbai

Directed by me, shot by bro

PS: Here is the link to the scary picture that dominated most of December

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tweet This Post

Filed under: Header | 6 Comments »