Sunday night out at Leopold' , Colaba

Sunday night was spent in downtown Colaba. I was just reading through a blog, and it was pretty amusing when i read in that ( Colaba is a tourist place in Mumbai). I dont really know if it is. Maybe selling cheap clothes(of course with a touch of traditional Indian taste) and imported fake jewellery from China makes it of this sort...addd to it s few stores and pork or beef serving shops. Ya...good bars too!.... So, i was there with some of  my friends who had come from Pune, they wanted to drink at a good place, so we chose LEOPOLD( See my friend in the picture).  Leoplod is good of sorts, especially if you have that thing to be amused by the sight of old and young foreigners sipping on their beers and discussing things which range from Bollywood to the recession in US..to the new great big bang which ppl say will occur in a month or so! I want to write just a bit more about Colaba..its amusing. Perhaps, its the best place to be in Mumbai, because of lot of reasons. Go there any weekend and see the most beautiful girls there. Apart from that, there are a lot of other things to be seen at Colaba some of which i noticed like:

1. Seeing a couple of foreign girls handing a child beggar a 50 rupee note, then clicking a picture of him. (Later on they'll go on to write a book about beggars in India, and talk about the mess they saw here..which eventually will become bestsellers). The picture might fetch them an award as well.

2. A long line of shops selling T-shirts, handbags, cheap perfumes, ethnic indian wear, indian jewellery ( all this indian stuff comes from China actually...so its a chinese thing with an indian look n feel.....!)

3. A guy selling a Dholak( those who dont know..consider it as a single drum which is much rounder and fatter!!)....a guy running to sell it to my friend( who is indian but looks chinese...he just mistook him)..and asking him to buy in a broken english.."Sir, Sir......drum drum..very good sound..party ..party!!!!". 

4. A man coming back to the same friend of mine and saying...Sir, sir..indian girl..china girl...very cheap..very cheap...500 only!!!

Well, apart from that, Colaba has a good crowd, good stores..its good to shop there. Perhaps the churchgate area also is the cleanest in Mumbai. It still got good architecture from the britishers.....then theres the Asiatic society( its a national library i heard). Its a very beautiful building, but its pathetic from inside (our government is good at giving names to places...no one cares to maintain it). A school library is lot lot better!!

 But Lemme not talk about it and come back to the Leopold...somethinngs cooking in there.. So we were there at leopolds besides a couple( Australian.later i knew that..and an oldie). The aussie girl was good looking and my new friend..he came from pune a day back..he cudnt get his eyes off her. So, he said this to us. "I'll listen to these people talking and i will laugh when they laugh"..pretty awkward..but then its alright to do what u want to do..ppl say tht right!! So in between we were talkinng he'd just turn around and start laughing. He just made friends with the old aussie sitting there..dont know what all he talked about....(he made the old man wait 20 minutes to fill his mug of beer..he ont let go!) .......but whatever it was, the ending was like this, The old man didnt know the girl..they just met over beer..and so...it implied he cidnt help him with the girlie! I dont really followed up on this, but while leaving the old man took a picture of him n others..the girl ws in there too. So well, maybe thats some solace for the poor fellow. So that was sunday...like tht.just saw them off to Pune..came back and dozzzzzed off. Its been abt 24 hours since..and again i am going to sleep...office office again...sucks!!!!

Free Tip@me.com: How to buy a wine for the first time, find u dont hv a cork opener...n ruin it all!

It was meant to be just an outing at the nearby mall..just to find a beautiful girl i saw last week with whim i exchanged glances..thats it! only tht much....she dint come this time..why wud she actually? Well...so thers this new wine store which opened. I never drink beer....save a few breezers, but this shop was really cool and the shop owner just repeated so much so the importance of wine in life( U'd rather die than not buy a bottle from him shop)..that well i had to say..ok lets try.  Soo after much explanation he did about Red wine..port wine..white wine....grape wine..apple wine....imported wint...local wine..desi wine....he started with showing us the imported ones ..the bottles looked good n really good...However, considering the fact that it wass month end with a credit crunch, we(actually it shud be he..my friend paid) settled for this good looking bottle at a cheap rate. See the piccy there(with a floating cork). Finally after much wine suggestions from the old glass wearing Uncleji....we paid n came out.

So, here we are, two glasses perfectly cleaned...one plastic glass n one glass glass( rest were like...off to heavens long back). So..heres the perfect ceremony to make me drink for the first time. Ver carefylly open the bottle..openthe wrapper above it. Made sure we had a bottle opener( the one u have in a nailcutter). So its opened, and viola!! whats this? Thers no nothing////whats this!! ITS a CORK! Cork opener? I imagined it must look like a screw n u move it round n round. So i explain this to my friendo who is already poking the knife into the cork. The cork wont budge ..it wud just tear off a bit from here n there. So well...knife over..what else...probably a pan holders edge? naaah......after much engineering i got a pen tried to poke it hardinto the cork and then...SPLASH....whats that? thats a WINE FOUNTAIN idiota!! ya some got into my mouth as well with pieces of cork!..YUCKS!! was it the wine or the cork which tasted so bad in my mouth!! BAD BAD BAD..

But the cork was inside the bottle to let us pour it into glasses..say CHEERS..with wine all over the clothes....n everywhere else....and it tasted like....dunno what...no comparisions......but a piece of another advice for free...DONT BUY CHEAP INDIAN WINE IN A GOOD LOOKINNG BOTTLE..N YA>>>MAKE SURE U GOT A CORK OPENER!!

T

Long time..just a hi!

Well......as they say..Long time..no see!! Now this is quite the same. Its been long since i put up something into my well-talked-about blog. Much has changed like it does everyday..small changes..big changes.....no changes. Yet, it seems all the same. I cant believe i am 8 months into this job..this very first job i had..and yet everyday has seemed to be different yet it seems all the same. This is relative right? The small picture and the big one...this and that...blah n blah...mish n mash....well well..

Ok..in between all these days quite a lot of things happened..like my office changed...and the thing i cherished the most..no travel time...10 minutes is nothing i guess..turned into a mind boggling somewhere around 2 hours which prompted me to THINK about changing my house. I am still thinking on those lines...only thinking ok. Other thing which happened was that i made some new friends..went on a weekend trip to a place called Matheran....a good place to be...but then after travelling for so many years in the ups b downs of our great Himalayas...these small hills..like the ones in matheran dont really made me open my mouth to get that fresh chilled air which was hardly there....But it is a good place...good for a change from the heat and dust aned crowd and traffic and trains and buses and people and people and people eveywhere. The best thing there...no vehicles ..not at all...all i saw in the name of some automobile there was an ambulance and i kept thinking..how could iy have come here..because we had to trek to reach there..a toy train might take u there..but we dint take it..walking was more fun.....

I also came to realize that i would hardly ever be happy doing this job....this job doesnt mean i have any grudges with my job as such..it is a good job..good colleagues.n all..but maybe i dont fit into Mumbai....maybte a smaller place would suit me?..but aaargh..only if wishes could be horses..n i could hop onto one of the dark stallion..and ride my way to somewhere in the cool and peace of the hills...!!

I have seen quite a lot in Mumbai now....lots of places...lots of bars n mueseums...oh yah...some funny things i saw...like last week i was coming back at night from Dadar station...at around 11 ..and there was this bi broad sign.NO HAWKERS....right under it..and for as long as you can see..there were people with round baskets selling virtually everything .....thats not the thing to be noticed..somewhere somehow someone came to know a policeman was coming their way.....i hardly could blink my eye and i saw those hawkers shooing away with their baskets over thier heads....it seemed more of a formality..like as if they went away as a sign of "respect" for that policeman...and yah..there he emerged..from the crowd...a hero...looking on the sides to make sure that nobody is selling anything on the streets......its common police guys getting paid to overlook things,,but i saw it for the first time. I walked a few steps..and there were these lot of young girls standing near the rails..each one trying to look their best and besides them...a fat black woman with flowers all over her hair..guess she had more no. of flowers then the hairs...waiting..for what? I was just trying to think and collate it with all those movies i saw ..but then my friend said..." Item log hai.....u want one?"...it isnt hard to guess.........I like Mumbai for one thing..here everything is possible......and u get to see so many different things......thats there..but apart from that...everyday is a struggle......i am amazed how people have been so for so many years.,..same local train..same office...same run......and yet everyday is a new day for them......i just pray ....n try that let me get out of here very soon....i need to get outta this madness ......guess i am not

RED GREEN YELLOW

I generally take a rick to get to the office in the mornings. Well, theres this traffic signal near to the office where everyday i get stuck up for 5 minutes. So, everyday thers something to see there. Well, on the footwalk, there is a family ...some workrer family ....who seem to be living there. Everyday i am seeing them. A typical scene there would involve them having water in a small round vessel. They wud be washing 2 or 3 dishes which they have..but before that they wud make sure that they have washed whatever clothes they have in the same water. There are three bricks between which they have stuffed some wood and they are trying to cook something in a broken pot. Thers a mat which is hung up for use at night. Its fully torn and the kids are seen playing with some pebbles they colleected along the way. They do not have any clothes on and probably they will grow up yo become the way there parents are. I feel ashamed of myself writing it all, coz theres nothing that i am doing for them.

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There are heaps an heaps of people all over ... its all about survival. They work in the day....whatever they get they feed themselves...they get back to sleep wherever they get place..on the roadside...on the footpath...inside the big round pipes...on the sand piled up for construction work...thers no stopping. And well...no wonder if some drunk guy drives his SUV over them.

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Yess....here in this place people generally dont take up anything well. If you are trying to help someone..make sure you be ready to be hit back..i was at this train station yesterday..long queue..i had to wait half an hour to get the ticket itself. There was this old man standing in the front..so well he dint have change and the person refused to give him a ticket after bullying him. The old man(he wsnt very old..but old enugh to be called old)...just muttered something..he looked pretty helpless...coz it meant he wont be getting the ticket unless he got the change. Ok...I just offered that i will buy him the ticket instead. WEll...maybe this is something i shudnt have done coz all i got back was screaming and embarassment. So helpiing here is a crime. So you do nt have to try this. This is not the only experience ..thats why i am saying this. Mumbai is not a very friendly place...people seem to be all preoccupied with themselves. They see..but they ignore. Thats the way it is darling!!

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Pretty long time has passed since i just put up something here in this space. Maybe just that i did not get anything to muse about, because life these days seems to be a routine work trying to find a much needed balance between work and trying to catch up with other things. Now this is something that might be hard to explain and maybe people struggle whole lives to have this. IS IT??

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Well..i have been reading books and the book that i am reading now is " Wrestling the Dragon" which is about the XVII Karmapa, the kid Lama who fled away form Tibet. Its something thats of interest to me coz i think i have been alway been fascinated and excited to learn more about Buddhism.. about Tibet and should i say...History?? i am not very sure about this. So, thats what i am currently doing now.

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Office front....ya i m holding my ground betwen everyday tensions....bullies. BULLSHITS! There is talk going on that my office might be shifted to a new place and if this happens, this might take me more than an hour travelling to the place. Duuuuuudeeee....now where does that land me up!
the kingdom of deep shit???

FIRE IN THE HOLE!!

So it was another weekend gone by....and well there was nothing very eventful except that i almost butnt the pan .... i just put up there something to cook and then well.....i forgot it..i got busy watching some new videos and well....after sometime ..my friend got in..and almost choked...it was all smoke n ...nonono..no fire..thank god...ot it wud have been pretty bad.....the pan was almost on the verge of being flowing out like what....hot lava?? no..it wasnt tht bad either..soo.....it just happened.

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Now i am famous ..or infamous..whatever you say. Well..i havw this very bad habit of forgetting my mobile everywhere n everytime....and its been atleat 3 or 4 times that i just kept it at my desk and the other friend of mine..who sits next to me..he would take it..keep it hiddedn and then i'll be allll time searching for it. I juast keep on forgetting that...and everytime its with him...but i am forgetting things....itsss bad!! its really bad.

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Ok another thing happend..interesting..(maybe ..of sorts)...well this Mumbai local...i am still not used to it..i avoid as i can. Well so the other day i had to travel in it. I had a second class ticket..i was waiting for the train....it came..i cudnt get in..too much rush...another came...nopes..stil not..third came...not even this one...so well i decided..that i cant get inside....so i just got thought maybe i can get into the first class compartment(its a little..very little better)...though i dint have the ticket but its very common here to travel without a ticket..so anyways...i thought atleast i have the ticket...so i somehow managed to get inside. So well thers one more thing to add here. The people who travel by tht first class know cam make it out that who is travelling withoiut ticket or who just got into this first class compartment.

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So as i got in...i heard someone screaming(not at me)..hey you..this is first class comp..get out...the poor guy who looked black with sweat n all.....was literally thrown out. The same guy tells me.....these ppl na...they travel without tickets and get inside..they shud be beaten( i was almost imagining how it would be like if someone came to know even i dint ave proper ticket)....so but neways...i just smiled and nodded. I went to the far corner//in between lot of people....i was almost happy that atleast i got in and no ticket checking ..no nothing..my bad luck..there was this toicket checker guy...he came straight to me...and said..ticket please....i stood still and figured out he wasnt talking to me....well the guy who he was talking to also dint have the proper ticket....so he took him with him...but wait......he wanted some more ppl whom he cud fine..he just said to me...sir, ticket please......

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The station had come..n i said..what yarr....letme get dowm first..but he wont let go...so anyways..what he said..ok come with me..held me by my hand(like i am a thief or something)....at that moment..i suddenly remembered... (last week there was a picture in newspaper...the caption read)....people traveling without tickets...i sudenly became adventorous..i thought hey llookk....fianlly..i might get to know what a lockup is like...i imagined that i am calling my friends..they are at the police station...but then we got to the office...and he sent rest of the without ticket guys in to another roopm..told me to stay...n asid..sir..what do you do....i just blah blahed something..and showed him my card...i tried to be stern and like..."its not my fault..i was pushed by crowd into this first class compartment" types....well but..he came to know i was in a bank..and said..look u can pay me 500 bucks....whatt!!! i can trvel to delhi from mumbai in that same money in a better kind of compartment...he said thats a fine....he gave me the other option...or you can come with me to the police station...what?? am i really going there..yahoo!!! but on second thought ....no yarr..let me pay this guy(in siomple words..thats a bribe)..i took a 100 rupee note...and said look(old... bald.. fat... idiot... bastard....i said these in myhead) what came out was...look sir( bastard..fk u !)...i got only this much....he was like..hahaha...heyy this is fine ok..nothing less than 300..i said i dont have any..he said 200...well i gave him 150...fianlly...i wish i cud have kicked him hard...i kicked that coke can instead...it almost hit that lady..thank god it didnt or she wud have yelled at me...(oye andha hai kya!!)..thats another experince at mumbai......but that rush at the station..it is maddening....mad mad mad ...........

Tiger Anthem

Well.....i just came through this beautiful poem in Tigers thing on the WWF india website....

I too say....Save the tiger......Respect its Life. Respect Life..not only yours or of the tiger......but of every creature on this earth. Well...maybe we can learn to respect that. Belonging to a place where probably the worlds biggest tiger population thrives read Jim Corbett National Park...i know that these creatures do not have a lot of space to live in......we are eating out in to their place....worse still....we are killing them.....Join the Save the Tiger Campaign here....

http://www.wwfindia.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/tiger_wildlife/tigermosaic/index.cfm

..Seeing them in a zoo doesnt give the slightiest ideas as to how marvellous therse creatures look like in the wild..and how nature has bestowed on them the sheer power ... the might..the ROAR...Belive me, the world wont look good with only the Freaky Humans in it....maybe we should save it for ourselves...Hers that good sounding Anthem..The tiger Anthem:

My son asked me the other day

Do we have tigers only in the zoos

My teacher tells me the forests are gone

The deers are gone, wild animals are gone

The king of the junge now kills our cattle

Poachers on his trail Now people live where once he lived

His skin is up for sale.

I said son, your teacher's not fully right

Tigers are in danger, but still they survive

You can still see them in the wild Sure I will take you there someday

The future of the tiger still hangs by a thread

But the battle is still not lost We don't wanna see tigers only in the zoos

We'll save them at any cost And its now or never, for the future of the tiger

It is time to decide if we wanna see the tigers in the wild

And he looked you in the eye, When you shot him, before he died

It is time that we ensure we gave the tigers a safe home.

Well son, the tiger needs your support In you his future lies

If the tigers live, the forests live

And we need it for us to survive

I take the vow not to buy anything

That has tiger part

And I will try my best to gain all support

For the tiger with all my heart And its now or never....