For the last time, it's not 'fren'. As in:

"m blessed to have a fren like Peesaravanmuthudoubledeckerbus!"
"bas tu hi to meri sacchi fren hai!"

It gets worse! They have somehow formulated modifiers around the contorted excuse for a word. Like:

"just hanging out with frens."
"I'm a simpal gal who cherishes frenship."

It's FRIEND, for crying out loud! If you think I'm overreacting, let me leave you with a gruesome thought. What if this popular TV series was produced in India???



Now you're finally scared, aren't you?

"And nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain..."
- that guy who thought he was the entire world, Axl Rose.

Sometimes the universe decides to give you a break. It actually conspires for you for a change. Makes things work out. You win a lottery even though it isn't much. Those at loggerheads stop locking horns with you and get comfortable over a couch, virtual as it may be. Your SMS finally gets through after just one pending status! And your heart swells with pride when someone you hold close achieves.

It just had to start with that burger joint playing 'Golden Slumbers'. Perfect!

Remember when I told you that you deserved better? Well, I knew what I was talking about, but now I've just gone and outdone myself.

I can't simply be like this. This is just plain unacceptable. But till I cnange, I'm sorry.

(No comments expected or encouraged...)

Just WHY is my door number 8-2-310/3/A/3? I mean which kind of retarded 8086 endowed official decided on this contorted overdose of numerology? Why does God intend me to consult my cell phone whenever I needed to recall my permanent address, attracting suspicious stares from whoever requests it. Why do I have to repeat my address a minimum of five times to every guest kind enough to visit at least once? And why is the landlord's daughter so young?

If someone explains what 8-2-310/3/A/3 is to me, you entitle yourself to a nice fat treat from me. That, or you get an immediate admission into CBI!

Ok, so I changed the ghastly template to make way for an even ghastlier one. In other news...

• Shopped for pendants for the first time. All alone! it was amusing how the experience was all of interesting: "Natural pearls come only in these 3 colours", boring: "Yes, this might look the same as the first, but it is more casual; it's for daily wear!", ego-boosting: "These are all real diamonds, sir. 18K." and mercilessly ego-shattering: "Oh nooo, you don't want to look at these. They are all in the higher price ranges...", at the same time. At the end of it all, I was left with a cheap little piece about the size of a shriveled pea. At least I gained some arbitrary jewelery knowledge - for instance, they add 15% to the weight for wastage! Wastage??? Dude, if you don't want to waste, why don't you be more frigging careful? Stop weeding before work!
  
• A bunch of us went to a mall, bought a bunch of clothes, and managed to buy them in such a way as to make sure our individual bills were small enough to avail of absolutely no holiday offers whatsoever.! A few minutes later, we came back to buy a couple of undies, and bam! We win two passes to a Euphoria concert. Moral of the story: Ensuring that your underwear is fresh and clean is very lucky, if getting gay concert tickets can be considered so.
  
• Finally, the fast food joint Chicking really really sucks. Well, the burgers ain't too bad, and the chicken is quite crispy and KFC-like. But come on, what's with the stupid name? Sounds like something eve-teasers would use on a typically productive day.
• Oh, happy birthday, little one!
  

I've been to my share of eateries over the years, more so after my recent shift to a city with no obscurely linked relatives' homes to gate crash into. The mundane exercise each night, initiated by a lazy roommate who goes, "So, what do we do for dinner tonight?" in quite the Disney's Jungle Book Vulture kind of way, leaving the NP-Complete (little computer humour there...) problem of finding a satisfactory restaurant each and every night solely to me, has resulted in me getting familiar with absolutely all eateries in the locality, and most even beyond. My apologies for that mammoth of a sentence.

Anyway, as I was saying, I've had my share of eateries. Cute word, isn't it - eateries? But I digress... so, of all the places affordable (barely) for your average daily dinner, the one place I want to go into again and again is this tiny little Subway that's a convenient two kms away from our home. Initially drawn to it because of one disturbing detail on the results of my then recent medical checkup, I now like to go there simply because of the interesting blend of people it draws in. Of course, I admit one can see a similar blend on any of the newer trendy hangouts these days, but then again everywhere else they generally talk, laugh, have a good time. Nothing worth observing. At Subway, they are more themselves, lost in thought, as I am, lost in mine.

There was this really innocent fairy-princess kind of girl with a strange tongue (as in language, you pervert). Spotless skin, face like a doll, her words sounded quite like a casual medley of instruments carried by a summer breeze. Looking down at the way she looked half smiling at her toes as her male accomplice made all the moves, I couldn't help but let my mind be drawn to romance once again. Rather than check her out, I instead simply wished her, and if she wanted, the lucky freak who was with her but so did not deserve her, all happiness deserved.

Then there was this Oriental student, bespectacled, hair falling over her face, trying very hard to look lost in a book and in her white PDA, which I admit, was what I was drawn to before its owner. Feverishly concentrating on her reading and occasionally keying in frantic bursts on her PDA, she received more than one smile from me. It's just as well that she was too busy lost in her world to notice. A good half hour passed, and as I picked up my tray to leave, I noticed she had but gone through a mere dozen pages in her book. Perhaps she found English difficult, perhaps she had too much else on her mind, perhaps she was alone. Perhaps.

Then there were the bogged-down-with-life atomic families, the rich irresponsible software engineers, the confident aunties, the full-of-promise couples. Each with their own ideas and worries, their own opinions and insecurities, all bottled up inside them, not even let out in the small confines of the Subway outlet.

And then there was the foggy spectacled (yes, they are still foggy) self-declared psychiatrist with only an average wiener. The 6-inch sub, I'd call it. Hehe...

It finally happened. Bangalore is now ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು (Bengalūru) . The proposal put forth by U. R. Ananthamurthy was finally implemented on November 1st, 2006. How does that make millions of Pradesh-loving citizens feel? Very patriotic indeed! What do the millions of Pradesh-loving citizens think of this proposal? They don't...

U. R. Ananthamurthy, I. M. Very Annoyed!

I thought this was cute. I'm sure at least half a dozen people I know will disagree. But, keeping up with my scandalous reputation, here it goes.

On checking out Aparajita's Orkut profile:

Arjun > Sneha > Aparajita


Tee hee hee!

Yeah yeah, Sneha or Appu, if you want me to remove this post, I will. Party poopers...

The first bug I resolved at Amazon - didn't really do anything, rather showed the concerned party that nothing could be done! Just when I stretched my hand to pat myself on my back, I received the icing on the cake via email:
--------------------------------------------
Why did it take nearly 3 months for you to get to this ticket? This is unacceptable. The response time on this ticket is ridiculous.

XXX
--------------------------------------------
Hahaha!
No offence, XXX, but 3 months back I was begging my thesis superviser to let me go! Ahh, memories... :)
Now, me's gonna solve me some tickets. Bring 'em my way. Bring on the rants!

"Free is all you gotta be..."
Ah! A wonderful day today, isn't it? Did some good work last night. And the day is bright, without being unnecessarily hot. Just about right. One of those days.

"Dream dreams no one else can see..."
Q. Hello, Amjad, yaar... cab 9 baje bulaya tha. 9:10 baje hain. Kidhar hai?
A. Haan sir, abhi 10 minute me ayega.

"Sometimes ya wanna run away..."
Oh well, just some standing around in the middle of the road looking like an idiot with auto drivers driving by very slowly in hopes of getting a ride for a while. No biggie. Just hum the song louder in your head. Simple!

"But you never know what might be coming round your way"
Q. Hello, Amjad. 9:35 baje hain...
A. Haan Sir, woh cab Jubilee Hills mein traffic jam me fasa hai. Abhi 2 minute me pahunchega.
Q. Traffic jam in Jubilee Hills? Yeah, right! Arrrgh!

"On a day like today, the whole world can change"
Well now it's getting to me. Hmm... but it's not the cab. It's something else. I wonder what?
...
...
...
Prrrfffffffft!

Haha, yeah. I'm back, baby.

On a day like today
The whole world could change
The suns gonna shine
Shine thru the rain
On a day like today
You never wanna see the sun go down
You never wanna see the sun go down!

A great white ox stampeding down in parallel. I glance at it, and I wonder how I'm managing to keep up with the terrific pace. I look down and realize of course that I'm sitting on my friend's back (let's refer to him as Tez, for reasons you will know soon enough), who's rampaging on all fours himself. In order to either bring the bull down or beat it in a race, Tez rams into the bull sideways a couple of times but the bull does not relent. I am worried for Tez, because he's just gotten stitches on his head and one of the ox's hooked horns is dangerously close. My fears are justified soon enough, with the ox lightly etching its horns onto Tez's head, starting a tiny spurt of blood. I worry, but we must win the race! Or bring the ox down! Or something like that. Anyway, Tez runs harder than ever, and the ox gets more and more agressive, burying the horn deeper and deeper into Tez's head, eventually tearing the skin and perhaps the skull. The scene then fades out thankfully. The next moment, Tez and me are talking post-race or post-rampage or whatever. Apparently I made him do what he did, and he's not too happy about having his hair soaked in blood. I feel terribly guilty now, because I do really care for him, and want to do something about it. So we go to a doctor, and get him restitched. Only for God-Knows-Why I'm doing the stitching myself. A short lapse of time, and he's in a much better state. And the alarm rings!

And I'm not having biryani from that place near my apartment EVER AGAIN!

A few adjustments were made to accommodate friends travelling together, and hence my seat, number 10, was already taken. Some chaos followed, and when the dust cleared I was put into the only remaining seat, right next to a girl who was fast asleep. I thanked God briefly for not giving me the 40 year old pot-bellied man he gave me the last time I travelled alone, before I tucked my luggage away and sat down, humming songs from 'Hum Tum' to get into the mood.

The journey started off rather sweetly. The girl's head dropped on my shoulders and she apologized before shifting to another position. Ahh, how sweet our lady is, I thought. Plently of time to talk tomorrow morning, let the poor girl sleep now. Apparently she didn't think anything on similar lines. Our lady is not a sound sleeper, and her constant shifting and turning kept me shifting and turning as much. But the really scary part was that everytime the bus jerked on the road, our lady would let out a soft moan, which sounded rather scandalous and scared the shit out of me. I looked around to see if the other passengers could hear her, but apparently God had reserved this treat only for me. I tried to exercise my telekinetic muscles to make the bus go slowly, but the driver was probably several levels higher than me and I gave up soon.

As the night went on, her right shoulder seemed to get heavier and heavier, and everytime she shifted on my side, I would push her back to her side, upon which she would emit that strange moan again. This happened quite a few times throughout the night, and by about half the journey I had shifted to humming 'Norwegian Wood' instead. Boy, she really had me!

Come early morning, I was woken up (yet again) when the attendant yanked my blanket off of me and did the same for the damsel who caused me a lot of distress. I turned to my left to see a mess of matted hair covering a face that I realized for the first time that I had never really gotten to see clearly the night before. She cleared that hair away, revealing a face that condemned the world for troubling her by waking her up so early in the morning on an uncomfortable bus. That face, which was the best personification of about a dozen negative emotions I have seen in a while, remained locked in that contorted state till I finally reached my stop. I picked up my luggage calmly and marched down, but my shadow must have leaped out the window instead.

In closing, if that 40 year old dude is reading this, I would like to apologize. I really shouldn't have cursed you or my luck when I sat next to you. In fact, when are you travelling next?

It's been a while. But then, I've been enjoying another chapter of my rather fortunate life. A few wonderful things about it:

• The drivers, the localites, the policemen - they all complain about how painful the traffic in Hyderabad is getting lately. But as for me, I'm from Bangalore! To me, the word 'traffic' has a much more chaotic and frustrating image. As a consequence, the cab rides to work are a breeze.
  
• I found a cute little place in Banjara Hills, one of the posh(est) areas of Hyderabad. Well, the place sucks as far as daily amenities go, but then I love the look I get from people when they hear it. Hey, and Hyderabad Central ain't too far away.
  
• I have a brand new DELL Latitude 620! I'm taking good care of it, so that it has Longitude as well. Haha. There, my quota of bad jokes is up for today.
• I get a huge salary the first couple of months. I'm talking HUGE! Well, huge for the 5k p.m. impoverished grad student that I was, anyway.
• Team lunches. They say they will get rather boring in a couple of months, but right now, it's like getting free treats (atleast) once a week!
• Did I mention all that money???
• An ATM card! I've been dying to insert those fiesty little things into ATMs and press some buttons. Withdraw something, maybe check my balance just for the fun of it.
• Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai - all less than 12 hours away.
• Nice geeky crowd at work. I feel at home, or at IITK anyway.
• Oh, and the brand new wardrobe that comes alongwith a new job. Lookin' quite 'da man'. Of course, this is facilitated by the... oh yes, you got it. THE MONEY!

But really, one of the things I look forward to every day is speaking to people I care for. That's what keeps us going. It's sharing my happiness with them that makes the fire of my excitement a steady warm ember.

I've packed so many cartons for friends that they have advised me to consider joining the courier business. I've made up my mind a million times to throw away all those useless bills, letters and gifts, and then cheated myself by sneaking them into gaps that the other luggage wouldn't care too much about. Friends back home keep asking when I'll be back. My friends here are buying rations and borrowing electric kettles to cook for ourselves as a last attempt to do something fun. Ads for selling our computers have gone out on the newsgroup. Everyone tells me to write a last comic strip or two before I leave. Before I leave, huh? I'm leaving soon, and it's just starting to hit me!

Yesterday was particularly eventful. We realized we had to shift immediately, and had to pay a good amount to do so. Getting a gate pass for a friend's luggage turned into a unfruitful bureaucratic adventure. I found out that a company I was eyeing just decided to schedule their 7th technical interview with me! We sat, together yet alone, the two of us, realizing that the endless chatter and movie sound effects would not strike the walls of my room anymore.

And then it rained. Heavily. Too darn poetic, but it worked for me. Envigourated and glistening fresh in the rain, the grass seemed greener on the other side!

We finally met. Talk about bad karma. She was just as I thought she would be. I apparently wasn't. Oh well... no free silver jewellery for me!

People cried, "Come back, we really loved you! And while you're at it, make love to me!"

They said, "Man, if there was one thing I looked forward to reading every day, it was like your blog, man! You're like the best, man! Make love to me!"

Some even said, "You can't write for nuts, but please... make love to me!"

South Park's Randy Marsh can eat his heart out! And knowing the crazed creators of the series, he just might!

Well, God knows I'm back. So, bring on the love...