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Talks about the recession have spread all over the world. The media is going frenzy every single day over the same issue. Everyday I read news about another country going into recession. The US and the UK seem to be the worst hit. And of course as always the effects are being felt here in India too. People who’re employed also seem to be cutting down on spending, while the govts in the developed countries are encouraging people to spend more amid job cuts. In fact, recently when I was going to buy a new MacBook, I called up one my best friends who’d returned from the US to inquire about the price of the notebook. However, I was astonished by his reaction to the fact that I was buying a new MacBook when there are people who don’t have enough to eat. He was just back from California which probably has been one of the worst hit by the recession with photos of closed down shops printed on every news paper. India probably is the only country where the effect of the recession has not been so severe. Yes I know about these IT companies firing employees showing absurd reasons. Some other industries too are busy shedding some “Fat”. In fact, I being employed in this so called Indian Information Technology industry, can feel the wave of nervousness around the office corridors, while the companies are still making tons of profit and also declaring them quite proudly in their quarterly reports. Sometimes I just wonder about things happening around me and force myself to the conclusion that probably my brain is not yet properly equipped to understand all the dynamics of this complex world. May be I don’t want to. I still have fond memories of the Birmingham beer festival last year, when I was sipping ale lazily. In fact, as I write this blog I’m wearing the CAMRA t shirt I bought, perched lazily on my cozy office chair on a Friday afternoon. I guess its doing the job of providing me with inspiration, to follow my dream and open a bar of my own, where I can serve beer to people over rock music and may be, crack a joke or two..
It was a big day of my life.. While friends at home were getting ready for a heavy Sunday lunch, I’d a very big decision to take; getting a haircut. Trust me, its not an easy decision for a guy who’s hair more than 12 inch long. People had started asking me if I didn’t have the money to get a haircut. Some of them actually thought it had someting to do with the current recession. But to be honest, even I dont know why I’d 1 ft. long hair. Anyway in the morning when I woke up, I’d taken that big decision. I googled a bit for a salon near by. My hands felt heavy as I picked up the phone to call “Eye Catchers”. Taxied 1.5 KMs to reach that place exactly at 11.30AM, as I’d an appoinment with the hairdresser. As far as I can remember I’d never fixed an appointment with Hairdresser before this. I’ve surely done it with doctors or some insurance agents.. But with hairdresser, this was the first time. He was speaking a lot of gibberish about fashion, which I’d no idea about, while he ran that machine over my head. After half an hour I’d reduced 1 Kilo in weight and had added Rs. 496 to my credit card bill.. And the same people who thought I was hit by the recession, are now looking twice at me before they can recgonize..
We have a varying number of laptops in our room at a given point of time.. Number of friends come in, go out.. We have a DSL connection from Indicom, pretty bad service but quite habituated with it now.. Anyway I’ve been thinkin about sharing the connection over Wi-Fi for quite long time. My tryst with Wi-Fi started 8 months back when two IITian dudes came to live with us. They had 2 laptops with Wi-Fi. I was able to set up a network and they could connect to it. I could even share and transfer files over wireless with one of them. However I never was able to share the internet connection using XP(I wish I had a mac). Today my rommie’s girl friend came in with her Vista based HP notebook and connected it to the Indicom cable. Thats when I thought of giving it a final try. I took her laptop and set up a network connection and shared the Internet connection over wireless. Of course I did use an authentication method (WEP), cuz today in the morning itself I was browsing the net over a wireless connection that was unprotected. Probably one those bunch guys living in the ground floor had kept his Wi-Fi on and was using an Internet connection. Poor guy probably has no idea what it is and how vulnerable his laptop is!! Anyway the Vista based set up worked like breeze and I’m actually writing this post using the Internet connection that’s been shared by another laptop somewhere around 6 meters from my laptop and is in another room!!! That gives me a lot of satisfaction.. Finally I went wireless on my laptop(legally) cuz anyway I’ve browsing the net on my E62 phone..
My fingers are still smelling ghee from what I did 1 hour ago. Yep.. I’d my first cooking lesson from my rooomie Biswajit. I just prepared Fried Rice!! In fact it was not that difficult as I’d imagined. And it was yummy. You better believe me on that. Below instructions are for anyone who is interested and want to taste it.
1. Heat Ghee for 2 minutes (a bit more than 2 tbl spoon!!)
2. Put green peas, cauli flower, beans, pea nuts, cashew nuts and some sipces.
3. Fry it for 5 minutes or till it gains a bit dark color or something like that..
4. Take 2 cups of rice and wash it properly.
5. Add the rice to the vegetables and fry it for 5 minutes or so.
6. Add 4 to 5 cups of water to it.
7. Leave the pressure cooked for 10 mintues on medium flame.
8. Now its your job to finish it. hahaahaaaa….
Hey I’m not kidding. The stuff I’d prepared was really yummy. Unfortunately my camera was not with me so clicked a couple of grainy pictures using the VGA camera of my previous phone; my current phone doesn’t even have a camera. Any hope you liked it and would probably prepare the same. Let me learn some more recipes I’ll defintely write posts on them too. Happy cooking!!
Nov 16, Friday night; took a bus from BLR to Hyderabad. Nov 17 and Nov 18, visited Salarjung museum and Snow world. Eat street revisited. Back to BLR on 19th. Completed my 10,000 KMs of travel inside India. Feels like I’ve achieved something. But again anyone with enough time and a little bit of money can do it. So actually feeling like a stupid asshole. But was never was disappointed with any of these journeys. Learnt a lot from them.
Deleted my Orkut account with 76 photos and more than 1K scraps and 137 friends, on the day of Christmas. No idea why. Probably it was just a new way to start the new year. Had a beer bath at 12.00 AM on 1st Jan, 2008. But new year is not looking new anymore.
So this post is just to congratulate myself for completing my 10,000 KMs inside India and deleting my Orkut profile!!
Hey there. I’ve no idea, where I stumbled upon this website. You can calculate the worth of your blog. It says my blog is worth some $1600.. Thats gr8 man. I feel like selling this piece of shit and buying a Mac!!! Anyone interested to buy this blogggg…..
My blog is worth $1,693.62.
How much is your blog worth?
I even check for the accuracy of the above site using Amrit’s (My frnd) blog and I got somewhere around more that $10 K. Just looking for a buyer.. LOL…
Dos:
Do everything in Goa except for Donts!!!! LOL. Yeah follow this rule.
Donts:
Dont go for a PIMP which u easily get. Especially if u r not a local!!! There are many strories that we heard from local Goans and u better believe it…
The tan is slowly starting to fade. Its been more than 3 weeks since I’m back from that heavenly place. But as usual this time also, a bit late to write about it. All the snaps in place in Flickr, but just a bit careless about WordPress!! 
. Every Sunday I thinks of finally posting something, but again get lost watching several episodes of Friends, back to back. Today was no different. But anyway finally posting it. The 4 days experience will be too hard to forget. So just wanted to jot down some points and free advices!
Day 1 (29/09/07)
* Reached g0A by 12.00 PM and took a taxi look around for a place for our heads.
* Found a place somewhere near Miramar beach. It was a dirty beach that time, but should be fine by now.
* Used the bathroom well and had lunch at a restaurant.
* Ventured out around 4.00 PM to go for a stroll along Miramar beach, which we didn’t find quite interesting.
* Took a town bus to Mandovi river near by, which is famous for its boat rides. Bought map of Goa for 20 bucks.
* Booked ticket for a 5 of us and boarded the boat. I don’t if “boat” is the right word to use. It was a big one.
* That one hour was fantastic. We’d beer and Brezeer inside. Danced to the music. Clicked a lot of snaps. hmmm yeah some hot chicks were on board too!!!
* We came out from the boat, a bit hazy.
* Came across a PIMP outside from whom we heard this line. “Sahab, Ladki chahiye kya raat ke liye?? Mast maal hai mere pass!!!”
* I’ve no idea what we’re looking like that time, but sure had great fun when one of us asked him, “Bhaiya, ladki leke kya karenge???”.
* Well that was a tough question for him to answer and the fact that we’re laughing our hearts out to that question, made it worse.
* Had a big discussion about that pimp, since most of us met a pimp for the first time!! Many ideas started budding up in our hazy and lost minds as we’re walking all the way to Panjim market.
* That was a Saturday night and the Market looked not much alive.
* As far as I remember, there was goddamed Cricket matched going on between India and some other damned country.
* Went to a church standing tall in the market, which I think every visitor goes to and clicked some snaps; one of which my current profile picture in Orkut!!
* Had dinner in Bar+Restaurant.
* Reached Miramar beach somewhere near 10.00 PM and found many couples coming out from the darkest areas of the beach!! Probably playing some kind of dirty games. No idea. U go and find out man!!
* We’re in hotel room in next 30 minutes and were too tired, so slept like donkeys.
Day 2 (30/09/07)
* We’re up by 9.30 in the morning. Had our breakfast and planned the entire day for North Goa.
* Took bikes on rent. One Passion, one Splendor and one Activa!! Thats all we could find after 2 hours of waiting. Filled them up.
* I’d the map with me and was the guiding star for them. So we started heading North.
* It was a fine Saturday morning and we’re cruising on nice Goan roads.
* Our first target was Sinquerim beach and then Fort Aguada.
* Sinquerim beach was a cool place. We found some crowd there. Clicked some snaps then headed towards Fort Aguada.
* I’ve no idea if that was the place where “Dil Chahta Hai” was shot at, but the place was pretty neat. The view of the sea was wonderful at some of the places. All of us became photographers there. We started clicking almost anything that was even slightly interesting and posed for snaps too. Yeah we became models for some time there!!
* While coming out of that fort we realized that all of us wanted to pee really bad. It was hot and we had lot of water on the way. And the worst thing is there no place to let go!!! Ahhhh!!! There were people all around. Ritesh was badly afected!! Anyway we did on our back in the Jungle!! Yeah, the really Indian way. On the road itself.
* The next target was Calangute beach. Yeah I know. If you’ve ever been to Goa, you must be quite excited by now.
* Calangute beach is one of the most hippiest beaches in Goa. Finished lots of Budweiser there. Had a tattoo done on my right arm. By that time my arms were pitch dark out of sun tan.
* Watched all the chick around and had lunch at Jerry’s place.
* Went up more North and reached Anjuna beach. Another hippy paradise in Goa. But we couldn’t find anything interesting there.
* So headed up more towards North and reached Vagator. It was better than Anjuna. Clicked a lot of snaps. Headed towards Baga beach after that.
* Baga was a cool place again. Its almost like Calangute. Lots of beach side shacks can be found there. Beer was everywhere. I could find a lot Firangi’s reading books over beer!!
* Spent our entire evening at Baga beach. Returned back to Calangute beach by 8.00 PM.
* Spent some time at Calangute again and went back to Panjim market and treated ourselves with a pure vegetarian Goan Thali. But believe me that “Solkadi” tasted awful.
* Were back in room right after.
Day 3 (01/10/2007)
* We’d planned this day for South Goa. But it was a bad day. Everything was a mess on this day. We headed towards South thinking about Palolem beach.
* Palolem, which was more than 50 KMs form Miramar was quite far place to reach. Still we headed towards south. Reached Margao somehow.
* We were stopped by police which fortunately was just a routine check.
* Found ourselves in a big traffic jam in Margao. Were very hungry but had a very bad breakfast that morning.
* After all these mess ups none of us were in a mood to see Palolem beach. We started thinking about Norht again. North Goa had really impressed us. We’re forced to turn or bikes NORTH.
* North was calling us bigtime. We’re ready take the pain to go.
* We traveled all the way to Arambol beach which was I think more than 70 KMs form Margao. But we made it and it was worth it.
* It was the most beautiful beach we saw in Goa. All of us jumped in to the see. It washed off all the pain from such a long travel on such shitty bikes. Clicked a lot of snaps while in the sea.
* All of again became beach photographers and models. Check out some of the snaps!!! They are hotttt..
* Headed back to Panjim market again. Had a Punjabi thali dinner this time.
* Haunted the market for wine, as the very next day was Bapu’s B’Day and unfortunately its a dry day.
* Went into fairly good looking wine shop and shopped for some good Goan Port wine and whites too.
* We were all too tired from biking, so it was time to sleep.
Day 4 (02/10/07)
* We’d no plans for this day. But we’re checking out from the hotel and we returned our bikes. So had no options.
* Asked the proprietor of the hotel for advice. And booked a taxi to visit Donna paula and Old Goa.
* Donna Paula was good. But that day was especially humid and we were sweating a lot.
* Next was Basilica of BOM Jesus. It has a huge altar. Its beautiful. Believe me. I was almost lost clicking snaps inside it. Then one more church and museum. The architecture so wonderful, that you cannot stop yourself from clicking snaps.
* It was awesome. Then we visited 2 temples and had lunch.
* Then it was time for a final visit to Calangute for the last time. Had another tattoo done on my left hand. It was a Batman this time.
* Headed back to catch the bus back to BLR. The thought of it was itself depressing, but had come back anyway.
Finally forgive me for spelling mistakes if any and wait for another post on Do’s and Dont’s. Go Goa!!
I just don’t know why I get late in posting things. I’ve no idea. I think laziness or may be moodiness. Now I’ve got the mood after drinking a couple of beers and breezers. That too at 1.00 AM in the morning! Anyway this post is about Pondicherry, which I’d visited a couple of weeks back. This time it was me and Chirag. Till Friday evening there was no booking done. When we called up the travel agents found that nothing was left for Friday. So had to do it on Saturday, which also had dependency on availability of tickets. But didn’t want to waste the weekend when we’d a plan. So booked the tickets immediately for Saturday and reached Pondicherry by 5 AM on a Sunday morning. Bus journey was painful in that Non AC bus. Chirag had a lot of complaints about mosquito bytes. The time we got down from the bus several auto wallahs started following us. All of them promised us to take to a good hotel. But don’t believe them. They’re all wolves in sheep’s skin. All big time bastards. One of them robbed us of Rs. 40 for only 1.5 KMs. And got us into a dirty guest house. Since it was around 5.30 AM, we took a little rest. Headed out to discover Pondicherry around 8.00 AM. Had our breakfast. Nothing special. Typical South India breakfast. Dosa and Idly vada. I wonder sometimes how do the South Indians get all the necessary nutrition from such food. We’re told in Bangalore that, bikes are easily available. Quite untrue. Don’t go by such advice. We found a Pulsar only after wandering 1.5 hrs in the market. Anyone you ask would tell you to go “Straightaaaa..”. They don’t say “straight” as its normally said. But they say stretch the last ‘a’ to make it sound like ‘aaaaaa’. Straightaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa……….. Ok okay. Finally we found a old Pulsar, but was quite fit for the need for the moment. So took it for a rent of Rs. 150 and fed it with 2.5 ltrs of petrol, which was enough for Pondicherry. Must confess here, there nothing much to see in Pondicherry except for European/French architecture. That was when I realized that one should read blogs before making a plan for such trips. And thats the reason probably I’m posting this. My first advice would be, don’t go to Pondicherry for its beaches. One was dirty and meant for fishing and another was entirely laid with stones. So beaches are just for a lazy stroll. Spend some time in the French colony. Its worth spending some time at. European architecture can be found every where. Of course Tamil is the default language in the area, every street name is written in English and French too. Not a problem for foreigners and the other Indians also. We went into the Aurobindo ashram. Quite serene place. One more thing people in Pondicherry are very nice. At least thats what we noticed in the whole day that we’d spent there. Roads sometime suffer from traffic jam but road rage was absent. Everyone seemed quite happy and cheerful. No tension at all. And chicks!!! My god…. I’m an atheist. But they’ll force you to believe in God. But I still maintain that I’m an atheist. But chicksssss………. I saw one girl I don’t think I can forget her face ever. She was a goddess man!!! Chirag and I though, its worth taking a snap. But one thing I forgot. Turning off the FLASH. Fuck man. Chirag slowed down the bike and clicked the button. And suddenly what happened was a bright light got fired from my Canon hand canon and everyone was looking at us. Quite embarrassing. Huh.. Couldn’t really help it. Forget it man. We had to push the bike to its limit after that accident!!! Lol. Hadn’t booked the return ticket. When we’d discovered that there was nothing much to discover in Pondicherry, It was time we did it. We booked our ticket online at a cyber cafe on the same Sunday evening. Liquor is dirt cheap in Pondicherry. Thanks to the no tax rule there. Liquor shops can in fact be found at every 100mtrs. It surprisingly cheap. I don’t know about prices in Goa, where I’m going at the end of September!!!! Yippiieeee.. Thikin of buying a Goa T-shirt form Tantra or Offbeat. Chirag bought a 2ltr jar of whiskey bottle. I bought a small bottle of red port wine and a big bottle of white port wine. Both of them turned out to be very good. Ended the day with diner and went back to our shitty guest house. In the morning headed off for bus. When we showed our printed E-ticket in the KSRTC counter the lady there couldn’t believe her eyes that it was a real ticket. Anyway thanks to KSRTC the driver recognized the ticket. Got into our “Airabath” AC bus. Reached Bangalore somewhere around 3.30 PM. Visit to Pondicherry is good for one day only. Don’t plan a stay lasting more than one day. You’ll probably run out of places to see there..
Snaps : http://www.flickr.com/photos/vegdevil/tags/pondicherry/
Just finished a bottle of white wine. Feels good. Probably was the best time I’d in last week. A week of sleepless nights working for American clients. Had to attend a team treat after a sleepless night on last Saturday. An entire week of screw ups and big tasks. Don’t know why such weeks come and where from.. Spent the Friendship day without any friends and watching Friends whole day. Had sent a Friendship day plus Good night SMS to couple of friends in the day without properly reading it. Even sinfully planned to tell them that I’d actually sent it in the mid night but somehow reached their cell phone around noon!! Fortunately no one called to tell me about this blunder; probably because they didn’t want me to get embarrassed. Could be just they have also failed to notice it in there busy life. Anyway, probably these things are coming to and end in next couple of weeks. Just waiting for those days hopefully…
