Airport Talkies

Place: Mumbai Airport
Reason: Traveling back to college, came to Bombay for my visa interview. Yours truly is going to be in San Francisco for her summer internship.
Time: 5:45 pm, Thursday, 25th March.

Unless there is some pressing work at the other end, airports can be a lovely place to spend time in. And one of the many things that I love about Mumbai is its new airport.
(Friends call me a promotion advertisement for Mumbai.
Mumbai this, Mumbai that.
Mumbai there, Mumbai here.
But I genuinely can’t help it. Mumbai is where home is & Mumbai is where heart is. )

Call me kiddish, but I love the brightness of the airport. The many counters of food, chocolate donuts, steamed coffee, stark red colors, the plush seats, hot dogs, newspapers, overhearing snatches of conversations, interesting pieces of luggage (for example, the female seated opposite me is holding a huge tweety soft toy, making the ‘curious me’ worrying about who she is taking it for). The reason I love airports most is the random thoughts that sift through my minds while traveling, which inspire me to write every single time. Perhaps this is the only time there is nothing at all to do, no work to worry about, no assignment to finish and no quiz to prepare for. Airports are also a great place to catch up on novels, undisturbed with no buzzes by people in between. Having chosen consulting as a career, it is good that I like airports, considering the fact that I might be spending a considerable amount of time traveling.

Joos

Wrote this for the IIMA blog
http://insideiima.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/joos/

They left it behind

A half scribbled diary

Life strings: confused and wiry

An Orkut account

An entire life to mount

An old photograph

Into real people you wish it would morph

A blood Soiled shirt

A full cycle of death and birth

An uncontested remote

Myriad tragedies to emote

A mute phone

Blood chilled to the bones

A flick of hand

A wrong turn

A crash of glass

And silence forever

With halted conversation and speechless goodbyes, they left. May God Bless them.

Out of the blue

Seafood Risotto and Chocolate Fondue
Anyone who knows me a little well, knows my food cravings from time to time. This is another one of the sets of food that I miss in Ahmedabad, in addition to Thai prawn curry and BBQ chicken, Chicken dimsums and Crabmeat soup:P. And this particular set was first tried by me at Out of the Blue, Carter Road, Bandra. We ventured there due to R's insistence, due to her fondness for Choc Fondue. I still remember that dinner. It was once when all 7 of us were present ( C took a lot of convincing). Most of us were pretty broke and everything on the menu looked tempting and "burn a hole in the pocket" kind, unfortunately when our pockets were kind of already full of holes. Then my eyes landed on the Seafood Risotto. The descriptions sounded heavenly:prawns, squids, cheese, rice..yummy..And the price tab said Rs 400. The 400 declaration made me swtich the page I was on to pastas and sandwiches and sizzlers which seemed much more in the budget. But the prawns seemed to call me to them and after much discussion, debate with everyone and internal turmoil, I decided to SPLURGE. The happiness that I got from eating the Risotto that day was something which I believe was worth the 400 spent. And then it was followed by the delicious fondue which sort of made the day complete. Well satisfied by the dinner and the banter over the dinner, we went back satiated and content. A night well spent!

I returned to the restaurant twice after that, once with a friend, and once with my parents. I missed it a lot in the last 3 months and yesterday I revisited it with my parents to have my favourite combination, and the contentment I felt was still the same. The law of diminishing marginal utility doesn't always apply:)

To memories!

We never know when we're making a memory, perhaps if we knew, we would try and frame them in our minds better. This blogpost and some more in the future are dedicated to the memories that I have had in my life, the moments that have touched me: some crazy, some beautiful, some painful, some heartbreaking, some utterly romantic, some hugely embarrassing. Perhaps its an attempt to crystallize them before they burst away like bubbles.

Also, since some of these memories may have been shared with close friends, the other readers of the blog may not connect. So go on reading only if you have too much time to kill! And please pardon the fact that my writing is rusty from not having written for effectively almost an year.

H10 IDOL

So, R, N and I happened to be the only ones of the gang left on a particular weekend in IITB. And it turned out to be the HOSTEL IDOL weekend. Our amazing singing capabilities, (in case anyone is in doubt, Nithya is not the N, I donot wish people to even remotely confuse us immensely talented people with her:D) and the immense confidence that being in the final year had given us, and probably the lure of more masala in the valfies led us to participate in the competition. We decided to perform two songs, "Tu Tu hai wahi" and "Eli re Eli". We practised our lungs out and realised that our real talent could only be our costumes or rather their absence;) and not our melodious and cacophonous voices. Hence we went on to invent quite innovative costumes inspired by our songs. Our girl audience am sure would not have forgotten getting such a sight of their fourthies. People who are as talented as us and who have never got a chance to display their talent before, will understand the high that we must have got when we were given the mic and a full audience. We went on blaring into the mic, full of optimism, cheered on by our very supportive audience, adjusting our costumes fearing a wardrobe malfunction, forgetting all lines except for the chorus. Inspite of the ruckus we created, we managed our way into the second round (final year senti) but then lost to a freshie who had to be adjudged the best to encourage future talent!! Yet another bead in the string of crazy/foolish doings in last semester :)

But later that night, C, G and I had the mic and the superlounge to ourselves and we performed every favorite song, disturbed every person in the neighbouring rooms shamefully, danced till our feet ached, laughed till our throats parched. A moment that stays close to my heart.

TIP:For anyone who fears dancing and singing, get a mic, trust me it makes the fear go whizzzzz!!!!

To new beginnings!

Its been 6 months since I signed into blogger. I can count this as my worst kept new years resolution (reference:previous post). Forget working on my writing, i have done nothing productive in the last 6 months except have a ball doing nothing :D. Have enjoyed every bit of the last four months at IIT. Now news for my readers : Yours truly will be joining IIM Ahmedabad in the coming week and subjecting herself to 2 years of torturous studies! I am excited as well as scared as I don't know how I will stand there. 2 more years of resume making and interviews and shortlists. Phew! And I thought I had enough of that after the 16 interviews that I gave on Day 1 of placements.

Its becoming very tough to write, it seems I have totally lost the habit, so pardon me for the bland posts for a few days. I am forcing words out of myself which I seem to have locked up and forgotten in some lazy part of my brain. Btw, just wanted to praise an author I am loving these days. Amitav Ghosh. I read three of his books, one was downright boring (Calcutta Chromosome), but the other two (The Hungry Tide and The Glass Palace) really left an indelible impression on me. The guy writes so beautifully , it seems as if you are viewing a painting/movie and not reading a book. I have never been one for descriptive authors, but this one changed my outlook. I especially loved Glass Palace for the way it dealt with the issue of Indian soldiers in the British army who revolted against the British in the Second World War to pressurise them for independence. There is some romanticism and charm in his key characters which make you want to read the book continually.

Waise now I am on to Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra. I am past 200 odd pages, it seems a really good book too. Will continue with the book now, need to finish 600 more pages before I leave for Ahmedabad. Will sincerely try to post here more often!

Of 2009 and new year resolutions!

Happy New Year everyone:)
Last year has been an eventful one, with internship, CAT and then placement season.
And thankfully, its been a successful one in almost all respects:)
And now for another year, 2009! Thats when I will start working in a new city, Noida. (I don't know if I mentioned this before on the blog, but yes, ALAS! I am finally going to leave Mumbai after an amazing 8 year stay here)

I guess we do find reasons to make every year eventful:)

As for my new year resolutions:

1) I WILL read slowly and learn something from every book I read and jot down my observations somewhere. (I have been thinking of doing this for the last so many years but have been too lazy to follow this)
2) I am somehow going to work on my writing style in professional terms and try and improve it.
3) I am going to try every good restaurant in Bombay as I can before leaving the city ( atleast as many as possible)
4) And I plan to try all the weird outfits I have ever wanted to, before going into the life of business suits!

Ghajini - a disappointment

A badly directed movie.
The action looks like in a South Indian Rajnikant flick.
Illogical show of strength and no use of guns and strategy.
Its like a collage. Different scenes just put together.
Except Aamir and the heroine, acting is very loose.
Aamir exposes more than the girl, and sadly his body is too much for his short height.
I expected much more from this movie:(

Shahrukh and Rab de rule the day!!

Ek garam chai ki pyaali ho!

After a cup of hot steaming coffee and a a chocolate doughnut, it struck me that there were so many existing coffee cafes in India: Barista, Mocha, Cafe Coffee Day, Cuppa Coffee..and many more rumored to be opening soon: Starbucks, Gloria Jeans Coffee..but why don't we have any branded places for tea?

The only pseud place for tea that I have seen is Oxford Bookstore's Cha Bar in South Bombay. (By the way, thats one place you'll enjoy going to. They have so many different types of tea, and cool-looking designer cups, saucers and teapots. Though, I can't guarantee the taste of tea, as when I went there I had had a heavy lunch hence could only have a sip from someone else's tea.)

So coming back to the issue that there are really no pseud places which are made especially for tea in India. I guess we believe tea is something we will enjoy more at the nukkad shop rather than at a Barista? Now , I am more of a tea person. Infact, I like making tea a lot. Especially masala tea with kali mirch(pepper), dalchini(cinnamon), long(clove) and adrak(ginger). Throw it all in water, watch the water turn golden, then add chai patti(tea) and watch the water go black. Let it boil and add milk, making it go the muddy tea brown. Then pour it into colorful cups and tadaaaa..enjoy one of the most popular, tastiest drinks of India:). Nostalgically, remembering this whole routine, I once ordered tea at CCD. The waiter kept hot water, milk and tea bags on the table (for Rs. 32) and went off, allowing me to do the honours. I cribbed and cribbed for whole 24 hours till I got to have good tea in the hostel the next day.

Well, I wish someone would feel the same love for tea and open a chain of cool tea cafes. Or maybe I will, after 7-8 when I have enough money. Hmm, a cool startup idea. If someone plans to borrow the idea, do give me free coupons to your tea cafe.

Ciao!

The Secret Seven by Enid Blyton

This is my collection of The Secret Seven series, considerably less as the books used to be thinner than Famous Five hence I was never keen on buying them as they finished too soon.

The Secret Seven were a group of child detectives. Lead by Peter, the society consisted of his sister Janet, their dog Scamper and their friends: Jack, Colin, George, Pam, Barbara. The secret seven normally met at a shed in Peter and Janet's house. To enter there meetings, all of them had to say the password that they had decided upon in the previous meeting and had to carry the secret seven badge.

The seven got into all sorts of adventures: recovering a stolen violin, tracing a dog thief, finding stolen medals in the woods, getting curious about what is going on in a curious castle....

I think there were 3 major reasons why I liked the books:

One because of the sort of independence those kids had, going off to movies by themselves, running off after thieves and robbers in the night, cycling off to watch the circus and so on...

Second was the description of food. Things as simple as lemonade and cookies were described so well that they made my stomach grumble. I remember sitting down to have biscuits and water in an elegant manner after finishing yet another book, pretending to eat what they were eating in the books!:) (I got a similar craving last night when I re-read one of the books in the series). As for when Enid Blyton described tea, my stomach shouted out aloud! Ham and cheese, bacon and eggs, cream tarts, hot chocolate and what not! That got me my love for salami sandwiches which holds till date.

Third was Scamper! What a name for a dog. I can imagine a healthy golden spaniel with mischievious eyes running around licking every person in sight. I loved it when the Secret Seven kept passwords related to Scamper: Scamper, Wuff (his bark), and Thump ( the sound his tail made on the floor). I think that made me laugh a lot as a kid, when Scamper could also pronounce the password.

The town where the seven lived, was an idyllic one, modern yet traditional. They had access to telephones and motor cars, and also to the nearby woods. I always enjoyed the way she described the woods.
"The woods were full of springing bluebell leaves, their long green spikes standing guard over the flowers pushing up between them. "
"They had their lunch in the bluebell wood with the blackbirds and thrushes singing loudly overhead, and a little robin hopping around their feet, waiting for a crumb."

As this was my first series ever (rather first book ever) I have a soft corner for them, even though Famous Five are a much better read with the characters more defined.

But still as Enid blyton used to conclude her books, Way to go Secret Seven!

Since 1995!

Yet another fulfilling visit to a book store, and three expected-to-be-good buys inspired me to trace my reading history. I have been reading since 2nd standard. That makes it since 1995. Simple maths:D and its been 14 great years in a wonderful relationship. Books are, so to say, my childhood sweethearts. I have been known by friends and family as someone who gets so lost in books that even going to the washroom in between reading, becomes an onerous task :D. To all the romantic couples out there, beat this commitment.

The first book I read was a Secret Seven by Enid Blyton. I went on to Famous Fives, Five Find outers. Took breaks with Archies. Went on to school books: Malory Towers, St. Clares, Naughty Girl Series, Classic series: Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Pollyanna and lot of other single classic novels: The Old fashioned Girl, The princess, Daddy Long legs etc. Then came the Nancy Drews, Hardy Boys, Twins of Sweet Valley. Then came onto Jeffery Archers..And now devour arbit authors: Vikram Seth, Gregory David Roberts, J.D.Salinger, Robin Cook, P.G.Wodehouse...A long and varied list..

So I have decided to dedicate this December to book reading and book reviewing. Starting tomorow, I will start from the first book I ever read and take you through my 14 yr old journey.

Get set and go!!!!:)

Welcome Aboard!

All your prayers have paid off! I am finally a consultant:)
I got a job in Opera Solutions on the 1st of December, 2008.

15 interviews and then this job in hand, to decribe what I went through would take a lot more characters and a lot more retrospection.

What I' doing right now: Relaxing for the first time in many months and enjoying every minte of it

Countdown begins: 16 days

16 days to go for the D-day (Placement Day 1)

First job, first company. Wonder how that will feel. To belong to a company. To go to office everyday. No more having days when you can just bunk and sleep. No more hanging out generally at shack. No more cack sessions in hostel. No more afternoon naps. But, newer horizons. Crisp formals. Official parties. Travelling. Good food daily. Money;).

Mixed feelings.

Coming back to the topic: The countdown has begun. 16 days to go. Well wishers better start praying for me now :D:D

Dreams Unlimited!

A step closer to my dream
Visualizations turning true
Satisfied for the moment
Geared up for the future:)

BE MORE!

A recommendation from moi:

Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMLvqOMB5-U

Be born everyday..aaj rockstar kal pilot and who knows what the day after..

Kabhi kisi anjaan station pe utar kar dekho
Kabhi kisi gumnam shahar ka ticket katao

Doosro ki galtiyon se kya seekhna; make your own mistakes yaar..

And never resemble your passport photo for more than 3 months
Har subah shock your reflection

Explore..

Bachpan me to kya kuch nahi ban na chahte the
Why not today

Be born..everyday

BE MORE!

Schlumberger Internship-Summer 2008

Thats me:)

I put this pic on orkut, and a junior commented "Oh man!", my reply was " Oh woman!" *grin*

I was in the wireline segment at Schlumberger, Baroda. As wireline engineers, we are the people who send tools down into the oil well to check its various properties and hence give readings which help people know the well conditions *in very layman language:)* Also we are engineers with the most rigorous schedules and perhaps the best paid among all. We deal with catwalks, dog houses and monkey boards *these are all components of a rig:D*. We also deal with guns, explosives and radioactive sources:D

Its been a very different month for me. I have been on an oil rig twice - once for 26 hours and the next for about 8 hours. I've done it all right from washing oil off the tools to holding equipment while getting drenched in the rain to standing within about 3 metres of a radioactive source. I've used the hammer, the filer, the wire clipper, solder iron etc. again *mech workshop memories*. I've worn double layer of clothing for 32 days in the summer heat. I have worked for 40 days straight without any holiday * no weekends*.

I have also watched every movie released- hastey hastey, sarkar raaj, mere baap pehle aap, indiana jones. I have played TT, carrom and chess. I have eaten awesome food *courtesy our cook babun*- fish, prawns, chicken, mutton, pancakes, pasta etc. I have gained 3 kgs *sniff sniff:( * I have had a chauffer driven car take me to office and drop me home everyday *grin grin*. I have cooked dinner with 4 indians, a thai and an american.

Most importantly, I have met an amazing set of people. Everyone from a different background with a different story, but each one with a hearty sense of humour.

Cheers to Schlumberger Baroda for making summer of 2008 such a memorable experience!:)

Family Gossip!

Eccentric relatives and mind boggling family trees
Marriage of Blah's daughter with Blah's son
Grudge for this gift and that money
Divorce of Blah's son and Blah's daughter
New borns, and passed aways
Burlesque, mockery and snorts of laughter

This is how I would describe family gossip sessions:). I just had one when I went to Delhi to my relatives place. Everyime I go I'm treated to a new eccentricity of some new relative, with an amazing imitation(thanks to mami:) ) of the same. A treat to the eyes, ears and the heart:D

Jaane tu ya jaane na..

A little late to be putting this on blog, but better late than never.

One awwesssommmee movie, left me wondering why it only got 2.5 stars. Hell of an entertainer with the right amount of smiles and laughter. Excellent acting by every one. Perfect casting! Imran Khan is too cute to miss, and I love Genelia's clothes.

All in all, a must watch and a very fresh performance. I wouldn't mind going for it a second time.

God:MAN::MAN:Robot

“One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word.”

---Robert A. Heinlein

The above words have never seemed truer to me. Today, I came across an article which talked about a machine called Rep Rap which can duplicate 3 D objects. A 3 Dimensional xerox machine!

I have never read of anything more amazing and astounding. Though it is slow at present and has lot of limitations, it can be improvised with time. It could be used to replicate itself also. It is mind boggling to think of the vast impacts it will have. Imagine what it can do to the manufacturing industry. The cost of setting up an industry, hiring labor, etc. all reduced to one simple machine!

It almost seems like a device hurtling out of a science fiction novel. The concept could be thought of as self reproducing robots. We could say,

God:MAN::MAN:Robot

By such discoveries, is man interfering with nature or is he doing exactly what the nature intends him to do. Maybe nature intends him to discover the ultimate truth of existence, of this universe gradually through such experiments, through science. The day we end up making a world of machines similar to the world that has been made for us, would perhaps be the ultimate day.

Maybe Science is God and God is Science?

Cheers to Summer 2008!

Tomorrow comes to an end the most awesome and the most different month of my life.

I keep thinking that I will write a nice long blog on all this, but till that happens, this will suffice.

Cheers to Summer 2008!