UNDER_SCORE

The Second Last Supper

2010-07-22T04:12:00.000-07:00

Before I start this post, I must advise all my Christian friends that I don’t mean to offend anybody here and there is no pun intended in the title. There shall be no references to religion in this post and I only selected the title as it sounded quite attention grabbing and was appropriate for my story.

It had been a while since I had made any progress with my project of building a dog house on my back yard from scratch. It was not anybody else’s fault but mine. I had realized that Carpentry was not just about “KITPLY GOLD” and “Fevicol Ka Mazboot Jod”. I had so many failed attempts in trying to put together so called “bevel-shoulder joint that I smashed the whole thing into the ground. My mind drifted into the Ads that we see on TV for Fevicol showing joints so insanely strong that it would require the intervention of divine power to break those bonds. I made several attempts to make the structure work but failed repeatedly. Then I turned to the perpetual problem solver “Google” and realized that even though Google has all the answers but for a generic search like this, you need to have a search engine to search for the right answer in Google. I tried that thankless success less activity for all weekends for nearly two months. My dog (Sgt. Ramirez or Ramy) was still sleeping in my bed and I was in no way any further from where I had started when I got started. At this point I submitted to my fate – The only joint that I was good at was the kind that ruins your life in general on a long term basis and Sgt. Ramirez would still hold fort on my bed.

It’s sad when you loose such little battles in life as it affects your confidence. You begin to think that you are incapable of doing simple things in life like putting a stupid Dog house together (When in reality, its not that simple, Ask a Carpenter and he would tell you). I was not going to take this lying down. I was going to fight back. So what if I can’t make a Dog house, I can fill Mentos into a family size coke bottle and launch it like a rocket. At that moment it seemed like an equally sensible use for my back yard as compared to the dog house.

Unfortunately Mrs. Bindra didn’t think so.

Mrs. Bindra was my neighbor and also the owner of what I thought was soon to Mrs. Ramirez as Sgt. Ramirez has taken a particular fancy for him.

The reason why Mrs. Bindra did not appreciate the idea of Cola rockets was that the brilliant idea to waste 50 bucks and 1 hr of my time (Includes the time taken to get the bottle from the supermarket) went right through her living room window and landed on the coffee table. She may not have minded it so much under normal circumstances as she is known to be a woman with humongous patience reserved only for the opposite sex, but in this situation, it landed on the coffee table at the precise moment that she was displaying her generosity to one of my kind. This pissed her off badly. I knew from the past few months that I had lived in this house that she wouldn’t talk to me for a while but eventually she would come around. Until then poor old Sgt. Ramirez would have to live a life of absolute celibacy.

To be continued

Right and Wrong(Theory of relativity)

2009-09-07T02:06:00.000-07:00

I am making this entry for no particular reason. This may not be as entertaining as previous entries. As a matter of fact its not entertaining at all, but this is one where i would like you all to comment as in post your views rather than write about the story. I wanna see how much our opinions differ from each other.

What i want to discuss is "Is right or wrong a Universal truth or is it purely relative to each individual ?"

Sometimes we find ourselves judging others by their actions. Here are the instances that I have come across where either I myself or someone else has judged another person based on what we think is right.

Infidelity, Dependence, Seeking attention, Seeking sympathy, Dressing up in flashy clothes, Getting wasted, Running away from home and getting married at the age of 20, fight with parents, grown up men fist fighting in public places, Showing off or bragging, Seeking approval, being insecure or something as simple as a tatoo.

There are many more. You can add your own to the list on the comments. I can bet my bottom dollar that each one of you have judged someone at some point in time and probably do so quite regularly. We may not be vocal about it in some cases but we may still judge subconsciously. Im not saying that I don't do it. I do it all the time. Im sure that a lot of people judge me too.

Here is my question. Is it for me or the individual to decide what is right and wrong for them ??? Most of us have an instinctive desire to be liked(Some don't). Now this is where the judging really makes all our lives miserable(I Think). In our attempt to avoid being judged by others and to be liked by them, we may sometimes take on an alternate personality altogether from what we really are, but when you grow out of it, it becomes too much of a burden to carry. . This is most apparent in the age groups of 15 to 21. I have done it too, so i know. When you look back at it, you feel really feel stupid.

Another kind of manifestation is to be a rebel and do everything that is not considered right. This in way is also a way to be liked. Forcing yourselves to be different so that everybody considers you to be above others. A simple example is to tattoo your entire body and get multiple piercings in places that could only hurt and add no value to your appearance.(here you see.... Im judging while Im writing).

Another example is indifference to emotion. Some people like to think that displaying no emotion will make them seem superior or different. This will lead to you bottling up everything. Some actually try not to feel anything. This may be considered a sign of independence but really it sounds boring to me(There i go again).

And then there is the perpetual problem of us judging people being intimate physically in public places(I don't mean going all the way but you know what im talking about), Personally its not really my thing cause I think Intimacy is a very private thing but then can I say someone else doing it is wrong in anyway ???

Disclaimer
The views in the above blog are my views mixed with some other people's opinions and may bear little or no resembles to reality in your own cases but I would like to know what you think.

Darkness Falls

2009-08-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

Sandy had bungled up again. Sandy and relationships did not belong on the same planet. Since college he had been miserable with women. I thank the Lord up in heaven that he did not date anyone among the girls within our circle cause he usually had such bad break ups that he and the woman would no longer be able to stand each others presence.

Anyway, what was to be a nice and quite dinner to commemorate the joining of Harpreet(sandy's latest break up) into our circle became a loud and animated discussion(argument) as to how sandy was not at fault.

Sandy: How was i to know, he was her brother man ???
Me: Its just your lick man... Women and you just don't fit in the same Jigsaw.
Jojji: Yeah I think its time you start dating men.(Faking to be gay) How u doin ????
Me: Yeah that should be nice. You and Jojji would make a nice couple.
Sandy: Shut up.. F*&^ You man. Just drop it lets talk about something else.
Me: Yeah sure. Lets talk about sports. Sports like "Football" and how good Sandy is at it or maybe about how Sandy can loose focus and think its a rugby game and start running the opponents to the ground.
Sandy: Im goin to kill you....
Me: Relax man. Im just messing with you.
Sandy: Need to smoke. Im goin down for a bit.
Me: When are you going to quite this man ?? Smoking will kill you someday.
Sandy: Yeah........... if Harpreet doesn't.
Jojji: Yeah or any other of the 4,679 women that Sandy has dated(Sandy did not really date those many women but Jojji was just trying to make a point)
Sandy: You coming ???
Me: No man. Im just goin to get a drink here.
Jojji: Ill come.

They left and we continued to laugh at Sandy and his Luck with women(I meant his absolute stupidity with women). The evening was very entertaining considering that it was a really noce restaurant and the bartender put a wonderful show tossing bottles and lighting up the bar with alcohol.

Sandy returned with Jojji and sat on the table. He got up and gestured everybody towards him as if to make an announcement.

Sandy: We shall all toast to my break up and we wont do it with any drink. we shall all get flaming Lamborghinis

Observe how Sandy always said, we shall and not shall we. almost telling everybody else "You don't know anything, I shall tell you what to" and we all obliged cause usually his ideas were always interesting and mostly reliable.

In this case though, we had all had a few drinks already and flaming Lamborghinis involved a lot of alcohol in various types and a chaser in the end to calm things down, which was also an alcohol. But anyway as i said, we all obliged.

We drank this exotic drink and it was not easy cause i sip it using a straw with flaming alcohol pouring down in front of your nose. So alcohol was entering your system through the nose and the mouth. This led Mita to rush to the loo. Razz followed to help. They returned after about twenty minutes to find us all [retty drunk, all over again.

Anyway we decided to leave our cars there and go home in cabs considering how hammered we were at the time.

It had been Six months since sandy had come back into town and time had just flown by us. Everyday was something new. We were all enjoying the ride that was sandy. Not a day went by when we all did not meet. I was starting to anticipate each days excitement. With these thoughts I went to sleep that night not knowing that something very miserable was to come our way the very next morning.

It was 5 In the morning when Jojji called. I was still groggy from last night.

Jojji: Come to appolo.
Me: What happened ???
Jojji: I donnow, Its Sandy, He threw up and there was blood.
Me: What ???
Jojji: Yeah I donnow what to do man. I just called his mom and she is on her way. She will be here by afternoon.
Me Ok Im coming. Just wait there.

I went ot the hospital and then everybody else came around too. I went to the doctor and he said to ask what was the matter with sandy and he said the it was not clear yet and he was going to keep sandy on observation. He said the blood was not from his stomach but it appeared that his throat was bleeding on the inside. I also herd the doctor say that he was referring sandy to an Oncologist. This scared me cause if the doctor was suspecting cancer and sandy was a smoker, it did not take long to put 2 and 2 together.

We waited patiently. Sandy's mom arrived and we exchanged pleasantries. It was unusual to see sandy in this position and his mom treating him like a kid cause he was our leader. Anyway his mom decided that she will stay and asked us all to leave and come back the next day. So we did.

The next day I went into his room to see Sandy's mom crying. It appeared that the doctor had been there earlier. Jojji told me this cause he was there before me. He told me that the doctor said that Sandy had caner and it had metastasized and the cancer had spread to multiple organs. Chemo was an option but he didn't think much would come out of it considering the extent of the cancer spreading through his organs. In the midst of all this, Sandy had decided that he did not want the Chemo and would like the last few days as happily as he could. I called work and took the week off all the time telling myself that I was doing this for Sandy, but i Knew i was doing it for me cause I wanted to be there to do anything I can to save Sandy so he remains in our lives and we go on like we did for the last 6 Months. I know it might sound selfish but I just did not think something like this would happen and my brain was not prepared to deal with this.

.......

From here move on to Domminoes effect for the end of this story.

The Chronicles of "SANDY"

2009-08-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

Our cycle of meeting sandy went on ..... We would meet up at Lunch and then go the Cubbon park and have lunch out in the open each day of the week.(Not Saturdays & Sundays). Now this is something we all could have done before considering that all of us worked in and around MG road but we all chose to eat all alone in either our respective cubicles or a boring cafeteria or a boring restaurant and contemplate what we were going to do in the rest of the workday.

Now the ceremonial lunch everyday was something I would look forward to each day. This was my time away from work within the day. It was like a sanctuary I could escape to each working day. I have never felt more refreshed in the second half of the day before.

On one such day, me Jojji, Raz & mita were at the park with sandy immersing ourselves in food and Sandy's insane sense of humor.

Hey you know what, I met this girl at work today and asked her to dinner this evening. Her name is Harpreet. Sardarni hai. very pretty. You shall see her at dinner. Ab sochta hoon shadi kar hi loo. .....
Me: Abhi toh mila hai. Shadi ki baat kyun kar raha hai....
Sandy : Saale we are not kids anymore. Abhi nahi sochunga toh kab ??? Ab achi ladki mili hai toh kyun nahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..................

Sandy was interupted by a football that hit sandy in the head. In college this incident would spark off a riot cause inevitably sandy would want to beat the living daylights out of the guy who had hit the ball at him and we would all be forced to join in on the action. But sandy had grown up............. Or so we thought.............

He just picked up the ball and thew it at a bunch of kids playing at the park.

Sandy: Be careful mate ...

I was amazed at this reaction. Sandy did have a little bit of sanity left in him after all.

Sandy : So what was I saying ???

Now the ball comes and hits Sandy's head again.

Sandy : Be carefull ....
KID : yeah whaetever.
Sandy: What did you say ???
KID: This is a park, people play here. this is not your dinning room.
Sandy : Oh yeah well what say , u play a game with us then lemme show you how its done.

Sandy was in fact a good athlete. I had only recently gotten back into shape but Jojji was in no real condition to play considering that he had not been involved in any physical activity in nearly a decade(That includes his time in college as well.But he knew Sandy all too well to decline and so did the rest of us. So with Mita left to be the goal keeper the four of three of us started the game with a bunch of random kids. We got on really well. sandy kept supplying and jojji and me kept scoring. The kids were horrible at the game. The score reached 6 to nil and the kids got a little cranky. Now the kid who had argued with sandy earlier comes and purposely trips sandy into the grass.

Kid : Learn to walk and then start playin ...
Sandy : Ill show you ...
Me(Holding Sandy's arm): He is just a kid man leave him alone.
Sandy(to the Kid): we are 6 up, You wanna race to 10 ???
Kid: yeah why not

The game starts again. This time sandy is rough and keeps bumping into the kids and then finally runs the problem kid into the ground and leans over and puts his knee on the now weeping kid.

Sandy: You don't buy a farrari to learn how to drive. Pick someone of your own size next time.
Me: That dosen't make any sense.
Sandy: Shut up.
Jojji: Isn't that a dialogue from Desperate house wives ???
Sandy: "SHUT UP"

Anyway the game was officially over.

I got back to work and found sneaked into my cabin without anybody else finding out(Mostly because of Sarita, who was being awfully kind lately and also I had become aware of the fact that deodorants don't really work after you have played a game of football in the sun wearing formal clothes ). I finished up at about 5 in the evening and left for home. The plan was to met up at Papparazzi for the evening cause Sandy's new girlfriend really liked the place. This meant that at least 6 other people were going to be forced to like it too.

Anyway I cleaned up. changed into evening clothes and then decided to sit in front of the box(TV). The plan was to meet at Paparazzi at 7:30 so I had a little time to go. After about half an hour of watching David Curruso solve a violent crime in possibly the most brightly colored city in the world, I decided to leave.

We made it to the place and found a place and found a table right next to Glass walls because of the nice view.

Mita: Its nearing 8, where is Sandy??
Me: I donnow. He is usually on time.
Jojji: Lemme call him.

.....................

Jojji: Where are you man...
......
Jojji : Ok .........
Jojji : hmmmmmmmmmmmm
Ahh ok Hmmmmmmmm

Jojji: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha , ho ho ho hoh ho, ha ha ha

Jojji was about to have his lungs implode due to the amount of laughing he was doin.

Me: what happened man ??? wats so funny ??

Jojji: Remember the Kid we played football with this after noon ??
Me: yeah ...
jojji: the one Sandy turned in to ruble was called Gurpreet, who now has a broken arm, who is also the brother of Harpreet, who is the lady sandy was supposed to come with. and guess wat, he finds this out when he goes to pick her up.

And guess what ......

So does she.

Sandy got socked in the face .... ha ha ha

Sandy arrived with somewhat like a bruise on his face.....

To be continued ......(One last time)

appologies for my last post....

2009-07-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

Now we knew that Sandy was competitive but taking a girl paintball shooting on the first date and then shooting the hell out of her completely and then expecting her to say " Hey that was fun. so wats next ???" is rather stupid but considering that it was sandy we were dealing with ..... He had his moments

Turns out that Rashi was so furious with Sandy's outrageous behavior that she socked sandy in the eye and socked joji too for no particular reason other than that he was standing right besides sandy.

Joji though was too stoned to respond to what had happened to him.

Anyway, the next day I arrived at work, very groggy from the abuse my body had received, the whole of the later half of the day yesterday. Sarita had a very broad smile on her face the moment she saw me. Almost as if saying " HOW U DOIN ???" I state this in CAPS cause i mean like how Joey says to all the ladies on friends.

I am taken aback cause this is so not normal for Sarita. Picture this, Sarita is a Uptight, Homely, Non Funny, Non fun, Non involved, Distant machine type person who has no emotion on her face ever but today, it turns out that she is feeling slightly elevated.

Me: You look happy ????
Sarita: Shouldn't I be ???/
Me: I don't know, considering that I can't read your mind. (Mentally saying to myself,"I don't think anyone on this planet knows what will make you happy, or if you have any kind of emotion at all ... T1000...

for the benefit of those who don't understand T1000, Its from the terminator series.......... A robot U idiots ...... No emotions ...... get it ??? With a reader group like this, I donnow wat im goin to do."

Sarita: Where were u last night ????
Me: Out with friends("MOM" mentally)
Sarita: Were u drunk ???
Me: No, why do you think i was drunk ???
Sarita: Cause you sounded different. ( Cheeky smile appearing and bursting into a light giggle)
Me:(Totally wierded out and not able to comprehend what had gotten into my otherwise perfectly mechanical secretary) Oh ........ Ok ..........(Now freaking out about what had just happened between us, still wondering and not being able to remember).(Frantically) Did we meet yesterday ???
Sarita: No, but i wish we had.
Me:(Sheepishly) Why ???
Sarita: U don't remember ???
Me:(If I asking you then I obviously don't remember) Ah I donnow what part of yesterday(What the F*%K, why am i even having this conversation???) I mean what are you talking about ???
Sarita: Forget it if you can't remember.(And she storms out)

What was that ??? I checked my phone and there it was and out-going msg from my phone to sarita that read " You looked really hot today" and there were several calls back and forth from many numbers and also from sarita's number. But hey what the hell ...
MSG TO Mrs Sharma " Honey I wish you were single"
MSG To Nirupa Aunty "You on a diet ??? Cause I wan't you to eat me"
MSG To Water delivey Guy "Aaj chameli ko bhi leke aana . Warna ..."
MSG To Monty Uncle(Dad's brother) "Stop drinkin man, Just smoke Up, Its cheaper and better.

MSG to ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Me: ..........AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAA AAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

All the people had even called back.

One last msg ...

MSG to DAD & MOM " I just got married and Im coming home with my wife"

Me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I called Joji to find out what the hell was going on last night.
Now It turns out that It was a long time since sandy had done MJ too. So he was pretty stoned too. He decided that last night was getting too boring so we all should take out our phones and type out MSGs that he shall read out randomly and then send to random numbers from our phone book.

So here it is, My family thinks Im a lunatic, The water guy thinks Im a pervert, Sarita thinks Im interested in her, and my ex-girlfriend thinks im Gay.

Me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa
SSSSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

We meet at lunch and Sandy tells us with uncharacteristic enthusiasm how Rashi had slapped him across his face once he dropped her home and how bruised she had gotten because of the paintball shots. He was almost comical.
One thing I knew was that lunch everyday was now going to be a ritual cause we would meet sandy each time. ........

So Here I am anticipating eminent death over this weekend...

Pain-t-Ball

2009-06-29T05:14:00.000-07:00

Continuing from where I left off last time and apologizing for the delay again ...

I knew that everybody was stonned cause they seemed to be laughing at the most commonplace. Like me getting out of bed, me drinking water, me starring at them in absolute amazement. I was stonned as well but i was not laughing cause I was feeling parched & Hungry. I did not know where my car was but was advised by one of the Stonned blokes(one that i did not know) that it was in the basement.

Me: How long have I been sleeping.
Sandy : 26 Years .......

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha, Lol, Hee Hee Ho Ho
(Laughter echoing from all corners of the room)
Everybody else joined sandy in his Laughter, with me left trying to contemplate "what the phuk was funny about that ? ".

Me : Are we going out to eat or something ? cause im feeling kind of hungry man.
Sandy : Eat *&$#@ you Ass%$&*..........

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha, Lol, Hee Hee Ho Ho

I observed that the lady we had met or should I say the Lady sandy was dating since afternoon was also with us that day and she was stonned too. She was not laughing. She was just stonned and defensive.

Me : hey, I know you(Facing the lady from Opus)....
Sandy : I know you too ......

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha, Lol, Hee Hee Ho Ho

this went on for about half an hour. Then sandy realized that we had to be at the paintball arena in 15 minutes so he got up suddenly and then announced that we are leaving.

Driving under the influence of any substance is a stupid idea. In case of "MJ" even if nothing goes wrong it is still painful and excruciating. When you are on MJ you go to a state of alertness that is abnormal and disproportionate to the level that is required. Considering that it increases heart rate, you are thinking much faster than normal. Evrything seems clearer than it is, everything looks larger than it is and the world seems a lot slower.

Me : How far is this place man, we have been driving for hours.
Sandy : Its been five munites since we left man.
Me :(looking at my watch) Hmmmmmmmm....
Sandy : Ur stonned dude.
Me: Yeah .........
Sandy :(Not realizing that he is stonned too) Ur not on my team.

This was a problem. I have mentioned before how competitive sandy is. No friends, family or girlfriend would stop him from wanting to win. This could get painful.

We make it to the arena and we were split into teams. Now here is the problem. when ur playing you cannot make out who you are shooting at cause of the protective gear. The whistle was blown and the game started. It was a freaking jungle and not any easy terrain to manage or deal with. I kept shooting in random directions for a while and then i think i got the referee once but i did not know what i was shooting at. Finally i saw one of the blue team guys(I was on the black team) right in front of me facing in another direction. I shot at him and he was out. In comes another Blue team bloke out of nowhere and starts shooting at me indiscriminately. I figured, It was sandy cause is taller than most of us. Then suddenly one of my black team mates came in from behind and to help and was showered with a hail of paintballs all over the body at close range. This is when the crying started and we had to stop the game. The mask was removed and we realised that it was sandy's new girlfriend who had shot all over with bruises showing up everywhere.

This was going to be ugly ...........

More than just food

2009-04-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

In the car while driving

Sandy: Well looks like you have set yourself up really well man. Awesome job, Big salary and a bloody secretary ??? what the hell did you do to land this job dude ???
Me(Secretly feeling very great about myself and gloating): Its nothing much dude. Its just a sales job. Its not as great as you think.
Sandy: whatever you say man. Its cool with me. Anyway. wats the plan for tonight.???
Me: what d you want to do?? we shall all be meeting anyway. I mean whatever you say is fine with me man ...
Sandy(with a very intimidating smile on his face): That was the biggest mistake you made in a long long time ma man. You should have known by now, not to leave the planning in ma hands.(chuckling with excitement now)
Me(now very apprehensive and curious about the diabolical plan that may be going through sandy's mind): Why what do you plan to do???(sheepishly) I'm not sure if my body can take much punishment right now.
Sandy:You left the plans to me now live with it.
Me: hmmm OK

We arrived at Opus and ate and spoke for a couple of hours about college and friends and what everyone else was up to in life. We had a couple of drinks and ate till we were stuffed. For the first time ever I saw Sandy going for the bill himself. This was an event that did not occur at all in college. Sandy was broke mostly so he didn't really ever pay but even if he did he would be most reluctant about it.

Me: abey too pay kar raha hai ??? whats the deal you ???
Sandy: Abhi meine pay kya toh raat ko tu karna.... (with that sinister smile again.)

I had a feeling that we were going to spend a lot of money. I remember once that one of our mates praveen kumar chaurasia(PKC as we wld mostly call him)was leaving mid of the college term cause he got into merchants and did not want to study anymore. Well usually when somebody leaves, the others throw farewell party but sandy convinced him to throw one and by the end of it PKC had spent so much that he had to borrow money from us to go back home. By the way PKC as a nick name does not sound so cool but when you realise that it also stands for Padosi Ka Ch*da, it seems more appropriate and cool).

Anyway, the one thing that you can always be sure of when sandy is around is that you shall "MJ". No he is not an addict and he doesn't look like one either but he likes "MJ" when he is with us and we used to do it quite often in college. Well now consider the following factors :-

1. I have slept about 4 hours in the last 48 hours
2. I have just worked for half a day already.
3. I have had a whole bowl of pasta and enough bread to cause havoc in bakersville.
4. I have had 2 beers, 1 glass of pinot noir red wine, 1 Mohito and a shot of tequila.
5. Its 3:30 in the afternoon in January.
6. sandy has enough MJ on him to stone whole of south Bangalore &
7. He really doesn't care that i have to drive back home and my car is at work.

Well he rolled and we smoked(Soaked) and then he rolled and then we smoked and then one last time, he rolled and we smoked. And then suddenly I felt that my Left Hand was on fire. I was really embarrassed to say that i felt this cause i knew i was high but i poured some water on my arm under the table. I truly believed that my arm ws burning from inside out. and then realised that sandy was not at the table.
My thoughts at this point were " What if sandy never comes back ??? Am i Going to die here ??? i don't want my arm to burn... The beer was kind of bitter, Sarita was looking pretty today, I cant drive my car faster that 50 today, what is the % of African Americans in the US population, Communism was a menace to society, but capitalism is not better"
I was finding it hard to hold on to one thought. It was like wandering directionlessly through a museum but not understand why ur there. then sandy came back and told me

Sandy: I've arranged for us to go paintball shooting this evening. this is goin to be so much fun and I have a date too. that girl at the counter .... she is called Rashi and she knows the owner of this paintball place so we can stay after everybody else leaves. so i asked her out so im seeing somebody.
Me(Worried about Pain In balls not paintball): My balls hurt man.
Sandy(Totally puzzled): What ??? Dude ur stoned.
Me : Yeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh. Stoooooooooonnnnnnnneeeeeeeeed
Sandy: Lets get out of here. Ur embaressing me in front of my girlfriend.
Me: Yeah lets just go home and sleep together sarita ???
Sandy(astonished now and frantic): come on lets go.

He puts me in the car and the next thing i remember is, its 6:30 in the evening and Sandy, Raz, Joji, Mita, goofy, rashi and some other people i did not recognise at the time were in my room and laughing like hell. Now here is the best part. they were all stoned.

To be continued .....

Get some food.

2009-04-13T02:34:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of the previous story(hungry Kya)...
So read on ....

For any further info, please refer to previous entry called "Hungry Kya"(http://monkinasandbag.blogspot.com/2009/01/hungry-kya.html)

I was so excited and also apprehensive at the prospect of sandy coming to see us that I could not sleep all night. I rocked from side to side, I tried drinking wine to put me to sleep and called my girlfriend at 2:30 in the morning(When she was deep asleep) and got yelled at. Even though Sandy had not met us yet, our lives were already changing. I got out of bed all tired and worn out at 6 am. Didn't have much to do so I went for a swim. This was the first time I was swimming in 4 years. Anyway I got home and started to dress up to go to work. It was really unusual that I was actually taking a lot more time to dress up. I wondered to myself, " Is everyone else anticipating meeting Sandy as much as I am". I was to realize that some were anticipating it more than me but I'll explain that later. Why I was dressing up better was because Sandy usually set the Bar really high in terms of his dressing. He was able to walk into a room filled with people and make them all feel that he was the only one dressed for the occasion and everybody else was under-dressed and out of place. We had all gone through this experience many times over. This was probably because his parents travelled a lot and they seemed to want to buy clothes for their son from every part of the world that they travelled to. Anyway, I got to work, started the grind that I was a part of day in and day out but I was more energetic than before(My secretary faced the brunt of it mostly). I opened up all the unclosed sales calls, called a million clients to set up meetings with my staff (They hated me for this cause they all had to work harder) and picked up on every little thing that was going wrong at work. All the slack that I had generated by working the same job for many years had suddenly disappeared (My staff had started to take me for granted because I had developed a “Sab Chalta hai” attitude). Today everybody was scared of me. Now I was really the boss of things. Emergency had been declared. This meant that life wasen’t going to be so easy for the others. All this was because I was kind of looking forward to the change. But ………………………
………………………………………..
I realized that day that your body may not be in sync with your mind’s energy at times. The energy started to fade and not sleeping last night started to take its toll on me. I went back to my cabin and decided to catch a power nap for 20 minutes. This was 11:00 am. ……………………
Well I got up and got back to work again and this time I had even more energy in me. I was going strong, pushing harder and was getting better results as well. This was the first day since I took over that we were able to get 25 quotes of insurances into the hands of rich people in one day. I am not saying that all 25 of them were now paying us but even at 20 % conversion rate(which sucks for a good salesman) I’d have 5 new customers by the end of the day and at this rate with 22 working days in a month I’d have 110 new customers a month. That would mean a very big incentive package and maybe promotion with 6 months. ………………………

“Nock Nock”

I was startled by it ……….
“What???” I, who??? What???
Sarita: Sir there is a Sandy on line 2 for you ….
Me: Oh.. Sandy … Oh Ok... Ehh... Ok…
(Picking up the Phone)
Me: Hello ………..
Sandy: Wazzaaaaaaaaaap yo Dog???
Me: (Still extremely Groggy) Ahh would you like to insure your Home, Income, Life and pensions with us???
Sandy: What the f*@k are you talking about Jackass??? It’s me Sandy.
Me: Oh hi Sandy wats goin on man??? It’s been such a long time. Where are you???(still not able to figure out what was going on)
Sandy: I’m outside your office you moron. I was supposed to meet you today. Remember??? O r did you just forget to take your Loony medicines today???
Me: What is a Loony medicine???(Still groggy)
Sandy: Just come down man. We are going to Opus for lunch.
Me: Oh ok(Now coming to my and realising that i had been sleeping for 2 hours and dreaming about meeting my sales objectives, but still slightly out of it)

I got up and washed my face, combed my hair and stepped out.
Me: (To Sarita) I’ll be out for a while, I going to meet a Client, If I don’t come back, just lock my office when you leave.

I stepped out and started looking for Sandy on the street. No sign of him anywhere. Then I saw a Blue Sedan coming towards me, and I could see the driver was Sandy.

Sandy: Wassup man??? How are you??? It’s been years since we last spoke and here I am. How have been???
Me: Good dude. I’m doing fine. Life Chal rahi hai. I called everyone else. They are all meeting us later in the day today. You have a ring on your finger.(Extreamly surprised and startled) Are you married???
Sandy: Dude I am wearing it on my left hand, so I’m not married. Its just a religious thing mom wanted me to wear. I am not even dating anybody. Anyway let’s go and get lunch first. I’m famished. We’ll talk then.

Hungry Kya ????

2009-01-19T12:31:00.000-08:00

I want you all to go back to an older post. The Domino's Effect
http://monkinasandbag.blogspot.com/2008/11/dominos-effect.html

Well I have decided to write the beginning of the story now.....

I sat in my office, wondering what had become of life. I sat 10'X10' office, alone trying to get rich people to buy insurance for anything under the sun that they wld like to insure. If It was legal Id even sell insurance to protect against the insurance company going Bankrupt(Considering the current markets, I think it would sell like hell too). Day in and Day out I would go about my work with tremendous accuracy and extreme boredom. Every day I would drag my ass out of bed, dress up in a dry cleaned suit(mostly because the company pays for the laundry bills), Drive half way across town to reach work and get back into that 10 by 10 again. I had developed the ability to look and seem extremely lively and cheerful when in fact i was extremely grim and depressed(A salesman cannot look sloppy). For an outsider my life would look prefect " I had a nice Job at a posh Locality(M G Road), In High rise building(Prestige meridian) and i had a view (12th floor), I also wore plush clothes and drove an awesome car and I lived in a fancy apartment.

Well to this I say happiness is purely relative. I was the exact opposite of happy. There was no excitement in my life and i had nothing to look forward to each day. I had a few friends in town and we met sometimes but not that much. These meetings were like finding an oasis in a dessert, few and far apart. I could compare myself to a Japanese watch, Accurate, Efficient & Sturdy but Boring, un-stylish & mechanical. I always contemplated what it would have been like if I would have let go of the urge to have a secure future and done exactly what i wanted to do ??? how would things have been ??? Regret is the most depressing thing on earth, But I consoled myself by saying to myself, " The grass is always greener on the other side". Hmmmm....................................

"Grasssssssssssssss, Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssssssssssss, Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen Grasssssssssssss,". Now "what the hell was i thinking about" ???

I'm a responsible adult not a adrenaline charged, thrill seeking Kid ??? .......................ooooooorrrrrrrrrr Aaaammmmmmmmmmmmmm IIIIIIIIII ???...........................

"THUD" My thoughts were interrupted by knock at my door by Sarita (My sales coordinator/secretary). It was so loud that i thought a pack of blood thirsty ware wolves were trying to eat her outside my door and she really needed to get in. So sparing her life, I let her in. I thought to myself " My imagination is running really wild, I need to see a therapist or something". But then she said something I was not expecting.

I don't know if any of you have experienced this but i had a feeling of extreme delight and piercing pain at the same time. It was like Athena the goddess of love was kissing me and while at it she was plunging a red hot sharp iron file through my chest.

She(sarita not Athena) said "A guy left a msg for you when you were out for lunch. He said he will come in to see you tomorrow". In the most weird monotone, as if it was nothing unusual she announced what the message said, "Brace yourself boy, Sandy is back in town".

Me : Sandy ??? He said he is coming in ??? Did he say anything else ??? Where was he calling from ???
Sarita : I don't know sir and no he did not say anything else.

Allow me to explain why those feelings ran through me. Sandy was our ring leader in college. Extremely fun guy to be with, always in the thick of things but always thin on cash. No he did not borrow or steel from us but we always ended up going to places that were within his budget. We didn't complain cause he was the one who always bought the "MJ" and never took any money from us for it. Coming to think of it i think that's why he was broke mostly. He had a few problems though, He was over competitive and could be extremely aggressive at times. Being friends with him was like ridding a roller coaster, You love it mostly but you hate it when it gets really scary, but you can never really keep yourself away from one at an amusement park. I didn't know if I had it in me to ride this roller coaster again but knowing sandy I didn't have much of an option. I called everybody up, Joji, Raz, sonu, zeee................... and all. Surprisingly everybody was excited and amused at the prospect of meeting sandy again. I realised that day that I was not the only one who was hating life all this time. Each one of us had a similar reaction. Our lives were going to be turned upside down but we were all more than willing. You may think that I am exaggerating the extent of Sandy's notoriety but I am not. Anyway, what ever was to happen, for better or for worse, our lives were going to become more than what they were right now.

To be continued ............................

Airport, Monk and Not Just Jazz

2009-01-01T02:40:00.000-08:00

This article is written so all my reader group can know how our recent adventure at Pune/ Mumbai went, so it may not be as entertaining as previous entries. It’s been a while since I last wrote but that was only because I had nothing much to report and was not able come up with any stories as well. In short other than this recent trip my life has been rather un-eventful. Anyway, here goes

The trip started with me booking the flight tickets. Now I check flights from Bangalore to Mumbai and Bangalore to Pune. There is a difference of 4000.00 bucks. So I go ahead and book us in and out of Pune. BIG MISTAKE. I shall explain in detail through the rest of the post. Anyway. At the time of Booking the flights, I did not read the time of the flight. NEXT BIG MISTAKE. The flight out of Bangalore to Pune was at 6am. “6 AM”. Now Its been a while since I have seen these hours. What it means for me was that I had to leave home for the airport at 3:30am considering that the Karnataka government has decided not to build the Bangalore airport in aother city. This is not an exaggeration. You can now have a planned trip to just go to the new airport. Its one and a half hours in and the same out. Now this was really sad because I finish work at 3:30am. But by some stroke of luck, my boss let me go early considering my situation.(I had also not taken any printout of the ticket as I there is printer at home but considering my luck, the printer promptly decided to stop working) We got to the airport in a taxi. The driver stopped in between once on the airport expressway saying he wanted to get some Chai as he was feeling sleepy (Not very encouraging words from a man who has been driving us to the airport at over 100 Km/h for the last half hour.) We made it there alive. Although getting to the airport is a pain but it’s worth it as it’s a beautiful airport (As I earlier mentioned, Trip to the airport and sight seeing as well). We now hop into the most congested flight ever. The seats are so close that I felt the guy in front of me was sitting in my lap. Anyway, we reached Pune and then tried to find the hotel we were booked at. We call the hotel and a young lad picks up the phone. We ask him “ How do we get to your hotel from the airport ?”. The response “ I don’t know, the manager is not here.” I was like “ What ????”. “ Do you need the manager to tell you where your hotel is ???” He is like “ He will yell at us if we speak to customer”. This is really unusual. The manager wants you attend the calls but not say anything to the customers. He hangs up and then does not attend any further calls. Anyway. We get there somehow. Now the place is like really dingy, small, dirty and he won’t give us a room till, 12:00. which means I have to be out on the streets for another 4 hours. Well we decided to find another place and checked in. We slept for a while and that’s when Arjun & Arjun arrived. Arjun Me(Menon) and Arjun Mo(Mohanrao). We decided to go to a place called Apache. Now the guy suggests we try their Mild Beer. We do. It turns out that its actually Barley water and not beer. To add to our misery one of our friends Shayonee who is currently living in Pune decides to announce that this is a gay joint. So we run through our beer and step out. Now Shayonee decides to take us to a place called Good Luck Café. She orders for all of us as she has been here before. I ate enough spice in that meal to last me a whole month. I was contemplating what my speech would be when I would be honored to become the first Indian to be launched into space from Indian soil when I would empty myself the next morning. Anyway, we then drop her to the airport as she is leaving to Calcutta (We seemed to be making too many rounds of the airport on this trip). Then we go to a place called Souls. It’s got mini-golf. The first few holes made me consider changing my profession and become a golfer, but then it wasn’t meant to be. I took 8 shots for a hole others were finishing in 3. We then went to a legendary place called Prem’s. Now this is something you need to pay attention to. Me, Arjun Me and Deepak ran through 31 pegs of Old Monk and Two Pegs of JD. At the end of it all we were totally put of our senses. Deepak tried to eat cotton out of the Christmas tree and did a Bay watch Pamela Run. Arjun was boxing a hanging lamp and so on and so forth. Then the boys decide to go get coffee at the railway station. Now coffee has the effect of an overdose of energy drinks on me. We somehow made it back to the room and I was wide awake and pissed drunk at the same time. This state sucks, but somehow I then slept. I was not shot into space the next morning so I needed to go out again. So I went to subway with Shwetha who also lives in Pune. Then we went to a place called Burger King. Now this is not the international chain But an indigenously developed brand of Pune. The burgers here are nice and totally inexpensive. Arjun brought on his A-Game meaning he ate a lot of burgers. Then we went bowling to a place without any bowling and then ended up at Prem’s again. Remember this name as there is a legend that two fierce battles were fought here between three brave men and the world renowned killer “Old Monk”. Those three men were Me, Deepak & Arjun. We planned our battle better this time and made further progress to run through 37 pegs. Our bodies were more acclimatized now so were didn’t get totally wasted but together we wowed to continue this battle until we run through the last drop of this menace to the society and we took the battle to Mumbai. I shall fill you in on the details of the rest of the trip in the next post as this has already gotten really long. But I invite comments .... Thank you

On request

2008-11-21T22:40:00.000-08:00

Here is the deal..... I am writing this as my dear friend Basera asks me to, so he has absolutely no right to blame me for this. I must say that he pointed out a topic with great potential from humor. If i ever become an accomplished author then Basera can be my idea man. Note to Basera ..... when you want to give me a topic "don't write it on the blog." cause everyone will know about it then. Anyway, the event in question happened a few years ago when I was in college. our college was primarily a a residential college with all but one day scholar(Mallika). Now this was the time when the dreaded mid-year industrial training time happened. for those of you who haven't studied hotel management, lemme explain. This is 3 months of "All Pain But No Gain", that too "Excruciating Pain". I'm sure that the likes of Arjun are going to claim that I don't have much right to state how painful it was as I did not attend most of it but " Boss, I have suffered too". here is something that will put the pain in perspective, we got paid 500 bucks(Indian Currency) a month to work anywhere between 16 & 21 hours a day without an off for at least 20 days. I lost 12 kilos in 1 month.

Here is where the problem lies - In the above mentioned situation maintaining your sanity takes precedence over maintaining sanitation. The state of personal hygene can dip to a level where your clothes seem cleaner than you(Thats cause the dhobi will wash clothes but he wont bathe you). When such a dire situation arises, the last thing on your mind is to clean your room but I had an off for that day and was chilling in hostel when we heard that the OIC(Officer In command/charge, major by rank) was comming in with a senior Officer(Brigadier) to inspect the hostel. So i mended my room and stuffed all the clothes into the closet in a large heap, cleaned up the ciggarete buts, hid the ashtray, sprayed the room, put away the bong(I don't know what a Bong was doing in my room and i never found out)and made my bed up and sat on it with a book pretending to be deeply engrossed in what Thangam E Phillip had to say about velouthe sauce. The three gentlemen(the two Officers mentioned above and the warden arrived). They went through every room before ours and then inspected my room and the Brigadier looked around my room and gave a look that said " Satisfactory". I didn't know what else he expected but anyway, it didn't bother me. He moved on and opened the door to the next room. It belonged to Basera & Rajit. Well at this point the most apt expression would be to say "All Hell Broke Loose". Let me explain, the room had one dingy light(like we come to expect from a brothel in calcutta from the films that we see), their clothes all over ...... but not just any clothes ..... UNDERWEAR.... Just to familiarize you with the extent of things, It looked like a really badly kept used car lot, only instead of used cars it was used underwear. All over the place. They were on the tables, Proudly displayed on the back of chairs, on the ledge of the bunk bed, in one corner of the floor........... the list goes on. The brigadier lost his mind(understandably so as this gentleman has been used to inspecting rooms and lines of the men of the Indian Army who are known for their discipline). I thought he was going to have a stroke or his head was going to explode on having to inspect such a disaster. He said these word " Bhangi Ki Tarah Rehete Hai Yahan Log, Major(I Dont remember the name) Did you invite to to inspect this ???" He yelled at the OIC for about 20 minutes and said , "Sab Sort out karo and meet me in my office." The Brigadier left the place disgusted and Me, the OIC and the Warden were left staring at each other(I think sayo was there too but I'm not sure so i will assume that he was). OIC asked me, " Who lives in this room???" I promptly replied"Rajit & Basera"(With a slight chuckle, anticipating some action for the duo in the evening). At this point the OIC said something that I will find hard to forget for the rest of my life "They are living like MENGEESE". I thought to myself "What??? MENGEESE ??? Is that Plural for mongoose ??? I have never heard this before and i didn't know that mongoose were taken as example for bad hygiene." Then it occurred to me, still in thought " He is a Mallu, could he mean ????........................ Oh my god!!!...........................god help me!!!..................................I was holding my breath.........................I pinched myself so hard that i got a bruise........................I bit My tongue......................thinking to myself"Why isn't he leaving???" ....................... Then by Gods grace he left. I burst out laughing till i couldn't breath anymore, I think Sayo was there at the time and he understood as well with no words spoken. We both laughed nearly till we turned blue due to lack of oxygen.

Here is why " When he said Mengeese, the word he was trying to convey was .........................

"MONKEYS"

This is what we call mother tongue influence.

I have since used this alternate pronunciation of the word to greet most mallu friends who incidentally "don't understand it". Like all mallus only understand the accent when a mallu says it, like a secret code. From that day on our hostel lives changed. We were not allowed to lock our rooms(so that "They" could inspect it anytime). We had to make our beds immediately after getting up(everyday), we couldn't put up any posters in the room, ANY and last but not the least, we had a rule manual hanging in every room. A 12 point SOP we had to follow to live in the hostel. We eventually added some rules to it, Rule no 13 : User needs to take off his trousers while playing Need For Speed on the computer as best results are experienced bare butt & Rule no 14 : exercise is strictly prohibited in the room unless under the influence of alcohol and with strict supervision of a female porn star(this was intended for sayo as he exercised everyday and sometimes forced me & chandan to do it aswell) . But all in all thanks to the duo mentioned above our lives had changed(drastically). It was almost like Tarzaan had moved back into civilization. But thats what i have to say. Hit me back with a response. Specially you basera.

PS:Apologies to Rajit as he has been dragged into this needlessly but i couldn't alter the facts and they had to be conveyed in full.

The dominos effect

2008-11-16T05:34:00.000-08:00

This entry is written so i can redeem myself. A part of the reader group was not particularly happy with my last entry and was exceptionally critical of it(mainly Arjun, that's about 20% of my reader group, "Yet"). I did receive some appreciation for that entry as well but now i think that reader group was just being kind to me(namely mallika, that's another 20%). So here we are. Deepak has had the pleasure of reading this already. This is a narrative, A conclusion & a story in itself. Read it and give me your comments and I will give you the prologue, which will throw some light on the situation. Here it is ....
That day at the hospital, I was angry, angry that He had done this to us. I didn’t yell at him though. I couldn’t. I realized that he had done more to himself than us. We all met that day in his room at Apollo. That was the last time we were all at the same place at the same time. None of us thought that this would be the last time, but then none of us was prepared for this either. There was nothing left to do but wait for the inevitable. He was still at his humorous best. Making us laugh like he had totally disconnected himself from why we were here in the first place.

I did not want to remind him. I did not want to remind myself either, and then it happened at 11:25 pm Sunday the 27th of March 2010. He was liberated and we were besieged. Everyone went through the drill of breaking down, then going into denial and then eventually giving up and walking away. I went through none. I had been with him the most in his last days. I was running all that he told me in the days before he passed through my mind. Nothing that he said was serious. He even chose to watch a full cricket test match. But what was most remarkable that in the time of peril & excruciating pain, his humor had not left him. His jokes kept ringing in my ear and a constant smile showed on my face. I couldn’t, help drawing a parallel – He was a sailor who wanted crew to be on his ship, he came into our lives and convinced us all to join him on a journey rather than living our mundane yet safe lives on the shores and he promised it would be fun. We hopped in and oh boy was it fun. It’s like our lives ceased to be stationary or motionless and became dynamic like the moves of the ship negotiating the waves. We went onward to beautiful new lands and experiences. Our lives became purposeful and happy. There was something new to look forward to every day. He taught us the importance of competing & why it was necessary to win. This was another of his qualities, other than the quick wit, the extreme energy and the unexplained disregard for consequence.

And then one day he just jumped into the sea……………………………………………
He did not swim just drowned and drowned and drowned till the darkness of the sea is all that was left. We all scrambled as we had learned how to live it up everyday but it seems that none of us was paying attention when he told us how to steer the ship. SO it started to wobble and was rocked from every side by waves we had never seen before. No one knew what to do. Every one got out in all the life boats they could find except me and Joji. We did not have any lifeboats. And now the big Ship sails in the vast oceans, aimlessly, in random directions. And I sit on this boat pensive, distant lonely. Joji is also on this boat but we don’t meet very often. He lives in a different part of it.

It’s been one year since he died, we all made up our mind to meet at our favorite spot again to try and rekindle our lives, maybe catch up. Well not all but most of us. Raz has gone away to New Zealand and lives there with her husband. Meeting at that place was the worst idea ever. It had been long so we had healed a little but going to that place and not having him around to make us laugh took everything away from it. It seemed unusually empty. What it did accomplish is bring back painful memories. This was the last time I ever spoke to any of them. We kept in touch through E-mail from a few months and then never again.

And the Ship sails on. (Still Aimless)

Blog two point O

2008-11-13T01:42:00.000-08:00

I don't have much to write today but i still feel the need to be expresive about something. I have no clue what i wish to express so I am going to pick up topic which may not interest you much but I'd still like to know what you thought of it(when you give me your response, i don't mind you sending an SMS but "Why Not Respond In The Blog ???"). so here goes
I was tired last night of spending the entire day at home absolutely pointlessly. You will be surprised by the fact that if you lay still in your bed for 2 hours and you are not sleeping then you can get super-depressed about how boring life is. Anyway moving on, I had a beer when i was suffering from fever(This makes me quote a really cliche saying - Idle mind is a devil's workshop) & ate fried chicken(not exactly sick man's food). Then i met deepak and nivas, ate again and slept. I know you shall all get together and kill me if I end the story here(and i can understand that you are not interested is knowing how by rather uneventful day went). So I will try to describe my dream to you.
"I woke up late as it was a bright pre-winter Sunday morning and Sunday meant, No school. Dad & mom where out at some brunch somewhere. I lazily walked to the loo, brushed, and then drowned myself in a hot shower. This time of the year was the most unusual. It was cold but not cold enough, you feel cold in the toes but not the rest of you, but the hot shower was blissful . I wanted to stand there for ever. But i had important things to do. I went out to the dining table and ate allo parathas with butter and big glass of cold coffee. Then the best part of my day started, i went into the back yard(Now here i would like to point out to you that we were in barailey, My dad serving in the army and we lived in a large colonial style bungalow that stood in its own grounds, this is no big deal as all the officers houses in this city were like this, one storey house thats taller than a two storey building, which meant that the roof was so high that you felt like you lived in an aircraft hangar). I walked right out from the compound and kept walking till a reached a stream. I sat down leaning against a tree and started pelting stones in to the stream. This must be the most under-populated part of India cause i sat there going about the aimless task (attempting to raise the water level in the stream by throwing pebbles in it) for hours and not a sole passed by. The quiteness of the place was rather pleasent. The sun still shining bright but my toes still cold, I felt hungry again so I started walking back home. The sun was making me so comfortable in this slight cold that i felt like purring like a cat."
that's when the arrival of Sre & Mallika woke me up so don't blame me for the absurd ending to this article but i want to know if i was able to draw you into my imagination.

Random People, Random Advise

2008-11-02T00:24:00.000-07:00

Has anyone ever had random people give you advice on how to go about your life when they don't have the slightest of idea how well or un-well your are handling it already ??? Mostly these people are your relatives or Dad's/Mom's Friends who feel its their moral responsibility to intrude into your lives and help you manage it. One Mr. XYZ(I don't want to insult anyone here) who happens to be a distant acquaintance of my fathers recently "TOLD" me how he shall decide where to invest "MY" money. I highlight the word told because he did. He did not ask me if i need help with investing or if I would like him to invest my money. Well I have been avoiding him since then(I know i said this happened recently but only because the memory of the incident is fresh in my mind.... I haven't seen him in nearly a year now). And then there is this gentleman who had the audacity to comment on my job. He says " How long are you going to do this ??? This is not a career. You are wasting your time." The conviction with which he spoke made me think-"Have seen him at work ??? Cause he seems to know an awful lot about what i do." But this last one is a classic - This happened a few years ago - This couple who came to our house to meet us asks my dad what I am studying and my dad reasonably responds - " Hotel Management". I will have you know that what they said after this embarrassed and startled the most ever in my life - "Why ??? did he not study for his PUC ??? Why don't you sit out one year, study hard and re-take the exams next year ???". I wonder if it ever occurred to these people that there may be people on this planet who don't want to study Engineering or medicine ???. these are only few of the many such incidents. there are a few that involved me being compared to other people for no apparent reason. Thats really stupid. Its like a random person standing outside the pool telling a casual swimmer " That was rubbish.... Michael Phelps can swim 200m freestyle in 1 minute and 45 seconds." You feel like saying " Oh, Yeah .... why dont you jump into the pool and i'll watch you die of a heart attack from over exertion?" .I must clarify that this is not a generation devide or an age barrier that I am trying to highlight here that makes people say such wierd stuff. This can happen within your own age goup. I write this on my blog cause i want to know if this happens to other people aswell and I did not want to take up an issue thats been debated over and over and over and over like maybe the financial crisis or the US presidential race, terrorism, Relatioships, Break-ups, etc..... So feel free to comment.