this character is quite regular on my blog... my friend shriram!
so he finally got his call to sail on friday in the most weird circumstances.

Feeling toatlly bored that he was not getting a call for his first sail for a couple of months now, he calls up the company to remind them that he is on their list. the company reprsentative inturn asks him "when are you ready to join". Shriram, in order to impress upon the restlessness with which he is waiting for the call, replies "Anytime you say, infact, i am ready to come tomorrow even". The company representative however, takes the figure of speech quite literally, and calls him to join the next day.

So the poor fellow, packs in a hurry, gets himself a air ticket to mumbai in the last minute, and leaves home without getting enough time to say goodbye to family and friends.

On friday he finds out that he has to fly to Dalian, a port in china to join his ship.

Travelling abroad is quite frightening, even if you are well prepared mentally, have a good idea of the country you will be visiting. I am a case of "nearly there". I was supposed to be on a flight to new york, sometime this time last year, but opted out for a masters at IIT. I sure felt the jitters of planning a trip so far from home, because finally, home is after all home.

Last year, i went to the airport to see of a friend, who was going to washington for his PhD. At the airport, I just glanced at the faces of the people travelling. It was not a tough task to point out the faces that was going out of india for the first time, a delicate mixture of eagerness, excitement, anticipation of the new place, with a fear, sadness of leaving home was clearly visible. But even among the seasoned visitors abroa, according to my face reading abilities, i could sense a little fear and a sense of holding back. Infact, to me the whole atmosphere at the international departures terminal was a mixture of fear and sadness. I did not glimpse a single face that was extremely happy, nor a send off group that was laughing and merrying.

Anyways, coming back to my friend, this was his first trip abroad. After collecting his tickets, we changed whatever money he had to USD and started for the airport. This is where, my trusted bag, that which has travelled with me to home and back weekends,to matheran , to madras and tirupati, to hyderabad and bangalore got lucky and flew to Dalian, China. Shriram in his hurry had forgotten to get a smaller cabin luggage bag to keep important documents and toileteries and a change shirt or two!


The whole day was fun and happy mood for me. But, in the evening on the way back home in the local train, parry called up to give news that shattered all the happy mood that i was in in the evening.


He called up to say that a batchmate of ours from RVCE, a fellow hostellite, AP, passed away in the evening, crushed by a bus as he slipped from his bike.

Initially, as dozens of calls started coming to me, informing me of the news, I hardly could not feel a thing.

A hostel is like a big joint family, close friends are your brothers and sister, and then you have a gang of friends, like your first cousins, and then there are fellow hostelites, people you exchange a pleasant hi-bye with, people you hug in joy when they/ you get good results/goof jobs etc, the equivalent of distant cousins, related yet not close. To me AP was in the last category, and thus a certain ambivalence in my feeligs. A part of me felt sad, but another part wanted to remain happy, wanted my brain to file the whole day of fun that i had!

But later in the night, as i tried to sleep, the whole enormity of the unfortunate incident stuck me. AP, had been a part of my life.

For two weeks, in our second week on engineering, we had to stay in our first year hostels as the second year hostel was still being renovated. AP, was my room mate for those 15-20 days. He was our team captain for our night cricket team in my final year, and we were "FEst-Hos" team-mates in our second year cricket team.
As such short burst of closeness that we spent circulated in my memory, i really started to feel that I am going to miss this person in my life, so what if we had not really spoken since we graduated from college. Tears did not come, but the heart became heavy...

It is at times like this the one comes to question faith, relegion and GOD et al.
He was most certainly like any other 20 yr old, chasing his dreams, first in an engineering college and later in a software firm, living his life, working hard, studying hard, partying hard...there was no reason that he should not live his bright future, have his share of the pie...
in some cases, he was little unlike many of us. His job meant a lot not only for him, but for his family too. The money he sent back home, was used to pay back some loans that his parents had incurred.

And afterall, he was young, with his whole life ahead...

I spent a small time, in the shoes of his mother. What trauma must she be going through...

Why GOD why??????????????

I have a stock dialogue for unfortunate events, "Whatever happens, happens for the good"...and two days ago, all I had was nothing!

A mail I recieved today.

Dear Terrorist,

Even if you are not reading this we don't care. Time and again you
tried to disturb us and disrupt our life - killing innocent civilians by
planting
bombs in trains, buses and cars. You have tried hard to bring death and
destruction, cause panic and fear and create communal disharmony but
everytime you were disgustingly unsuccessful. Do you know how we pass
our life in Mumbai? How much it takes for us to earn that single rupee? If
you
wanted to give us a shock then we are sorry to say that you failed
miserably in your ulterior motives. Better look elsewhere, not here.

We are not Hindus and Muslims or Gujrati’s and Marathi’s or Punjabis and
Bengali’s. Nor do we distinguish ourselves as owners or workers, govt.
employees or private employees. WE ARE MUMBAIKERS (Bombay-ites, if you
like). We will not allow you to disrupt our life like this. On the last
few occasions when you struck (including the 7 deadly blasts in a single
day killing over 250 people and injuring 500+ in 1993), we went to work
next day in full strength. This time we cleared everything within a few
hours and were back to normal - the vendors placing their next order,
businessmen finalizing the next deals and the office workers rushing to
catch the
next train. (Yes the same train you targeted)

Fathom this: Within 3 hours of the blasts, long queues of blood
donating volunteers were seen outside various hospital, where most of the
injured were admitted. By 12 midnight, the hospital had to issue a
notification
that blood banks were full and they didn't require any more blood. The
next day, attendance at schools and office was close to 100%, trains & buses
were packed to the brim, the crowds were back.
The city has simply dusted itself off and moved one - perhaps with
greater vigour.

We are Mumbaikers and we live like brothers in times like this. So, do
not dare to threaten us with your crackers. The spirit of Mumbai is very
strong and can not be harmed.

Please forward this to others. U never know, by chance it may come to
hands of a terrorist in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iraq and he can then read
this message which is specially meant for him!!!

With Love,
From the people of Mumbai (Bombay)

PS: Really busy now. will come up with a post next week probably!!

The man is retiring. I just hope that he wins either the Wimbledon or the US open in style, and exit the courts that he has graced so well, and for so long.

There can be endless debates about who is the better player between Sampras and Agassi. But to me, I would always prefer to be on Agassi's side. For his rebel attitude that caught everyone's imagination in the early nineties, for his sublime tennis in the mid nineties, for his re-invention in the late nineties, and for the extraordinary tennis that he has played in the last three-four years, Agassi has been a player who has always kept me hooked to tennis. Maybe, the extra dimension Agassi got in the game, may be the fact that he used to go to the court and do something previously considered impossible ( base liner winner Wimbledon, his matches against Rafter in Wimbledon, where he was written off before the match, but where he produce scintillating tennis).

Perhaps, the Agassi-Sampras rivalry is the best ever, and may remain unmatched (Ah! who can compete with the magician on court: Fedrer).
As Aggasi said on Sampras's emotionally charged farewell in the US open, "You grow up with a guy, you compete against him for so long, he's such a big part of your career, something that's pretty special, so you do have that sense of personal regret that he's not around any more. You miss having that around." That just sums up the rivalry.


In many ways, Agassi's life is so fit for a movie. It has it all. Again, the rebellious young age, a sad and long drawn affair, that (at least to me, prevented Agassi from winning two-three grand slams) with (the bitch) brooke shields, amazing commitment shown by agassi to come from 141 to rank 6, playing the challenger series and all, reinventing his form in the way, finding a true soul-mate in steffi graf along the road, is just so like a filmi story.

Hoping that the Agassi legend lives on and on. Through his Tennis academy (where I hope he goes as a coach) and through his charity, may his name live on.

And what say, fifeteen years down the line, we might have a player with the tennis genes of two legends taking the courts by strom.

Cannot wait for the farewell show (hopefully one is organized) for Agassi at flushing meadows!!!

Hydrangalore? = Hyderabad + Bangalore
Hyderabad + Bangalore? = Reunion trip to meet friends
The best? = The best trip ever!

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Chat as much as you want on Yahoo messenger, feel as close as possible with your friends on Skype, talk for hours on the phone without bothering about your phone bill, scrap as much as you want on Orkut,
but NOTHING beats the fun, happiness, contenment of meeting your friends in person!



A trip long planned materialized last weekend, with two days in Hyderabad, for a reunion of the first year gang ( and quite literally, reunion after first year of all four of us!), and then a 10 hour trip to Bangalore on Monday to meet my foreign bound and foreign returned classmates.

For such a wonderful trip, it started on the wrong note, horrible Hutch, refused to activate my roaming for some reason (demanding a security deposit at the last possible moment), and long draawn verbal fight over the phone ended with me getting a semi- roaming activated where I can recieve only incoming calls.


I was more than excited to go to Hyderabad, as it is the first time I was going there and was very very eager to see the city, and complete my list of having seen all the metro's of India!
Reached Hyd at 5 AM in the morning, and then waited for 3 hours for Anshu to reach. Suku and Bhavani were our gracious hosts. But all my plans for site-seeing was flushed down the drain, when lazy suku and anshu decided that the best way to spend the weekend was by eating and lazing around at home.

There was a time, not so much in the past, when this lazing around was the only thing we did. Firstly there was the canteen at college, where all the four of us would, eat and chat incessantly about all the mundane things possible (like assigning each-other characters from Harry potter, friends etc, like discussing who has lived in more number of cities, blah blah), and then in the evenings, after dinner, where we lazily walked to our other 'hangout' - the research and development block of RVCE, for our research into life and subsequent developments as a result of that research!)

Back to Hyderabad, Anshu's treat at a place named 'Our place', turned out a amazing treat, and the heavy feast virtually closed the lids on a afternoon trip to Golconda fort. Hence, the evening emulated our walks. And for the first time ( or maybe the second, but i would prefer to forget the actual first), the whole gang (all four of us) went for a 'walk' (all other possible combinations of going for a walk had been realized).
Nothing special but really special.



Dinner was at 'Bawarchi', and each of us tucked into lots and lots of biriyani.

Sunday was guys day out. Bhavani had to go to meet her cousins. And, not surprisingly, the day was spent typical guys style, beer and F1 and football and Fedrer v/s Nadal.




One year has passed since we passed out. This one year has seen all of us change so much. The phrase 'moving on with life' has accuired so much meaning, when only a year ago, it was just a cliched phrase to be used as a consolation. You know that the past is behind, that you are not living in the shadows of your past, you have patched up the holes in your sweater and feel 'warm ' now, when you are infact,in a position to laugh at a your younger self.



The last hour in Hyderabad, will forever be etched in my memory for precisely the same reason. Engineering days, these issues were matters of life and death, warranting hours and hours of discussion, advice, introspection, 'walks to the R n D', midnight calls, etc etc to be solved/ Understood, but in that final few minutes in hyderabad, those exact, the 'then-life-changing' events in our lifes were dismissed amongst so much laughter, dismissed as jokes from the past, dismissed as our naivety, dismissed so that we start a new chapter to our friendship.

Parting was really hard, especially with Anshu, who will be 'flying' away to the desert lands of Arizona in August.

All I hope is that, opportunites to meet again come again. ( I wanted to write something really senti here.....but am woefuly short of words!)


Moday dawned in Bangalore, and I felt I was back home!
My first stop was my first visit to Forum, where I met a friend from school, Sashi. 10 hours is too short, and I had to push, and hence, spoke for just one hour. Sashi, I just hope that you finally plan a trip to Bombay when Shriram comes here, to complete a 'school-gang' reunion.

Sendhil is flying to Florida.
DJ is going to go to Scotland.
Abijit plans to go to UK.
Avinash is already in Florida for the past year, and had made a quick visit back to motherland.

They were a part of the 'chemical- brothers', college mates, source of 'infinite' masti during engineering, especially the totally outrageous ways we enjoyed the final few days of the eighth semester, last year, a few weeks etched in each of our memories, for the unforgettable fun.
We had lunch at 'Samarkhand', and revived the magic of the last year.

As a surprise gift, I awarded myself, I took time out to meet my grandmother for an hour. Made both of us immensly happy. Poor granny, cannot travel to meet us in Bombay, was virtually crying when she saw me (after again! 1 year). As, usual, granny started of with advice for me. ( This time it was, not quite surprisingly altogether, not about the need to study hard, score good marks and get a good job etc, but about "THINKING" of the future, marriage, family, kids etc, and about planning all these 'events' in life). Somehow, I just love when patti gives me advice ( not so much with parents, I argue then).

12th June 2005, Bangalore City Railway station.
Firstly Avinash and then Parry, went back home as engineers. 'Chemical-brothers' gang was there in the station to see them off. The station witnessed a wild scene then.

Coincidentally ( I should ask Parry to write about imortance of coincidence in life, he can fill pages!), 12th June 2006, I was on my way back to Bangalore, and the remaining brothers of 'Chemical Brothers', those staying in Bangalore recreated the scenes at Bangalore railway station. Dj, Gunjan, Sendhil, RP, Zimba and Anshu were there.


Now, I am back to the monotonous, dry, listless life of Bombay. But, the happiness, contenment and 'life' of my friends in Hyd and Bang has caught on too, and the days here do not seem so long now!

Back in Bombay, I got another gift, quite accidentally, in a freakish way, I was contacted by an old - old, childhood friend. Called her up, and memories flowed.

Sometimes I just wish, that Time, not be so precious, that we get to plan really long holidays.
I just wish that I have Hermoinee's time turner.
I just wish that there is a Galt's gulch, where we take a month long holiday from everything every year.
I just wish that Everyone were here!


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Photos (from top-down):
(L2R) Anshu, Bhavani and Myself at 'Our-Place'
(L2R) Suku, Anshu and Myself at Charminar
Anshu imitating my posture
Lazing around on sunday afternoon at Suku's place (suku's roomie suresh is in there too!)

Bangalore photos will be uploaded shortly. Sendhil is 'BUSY' and will probably send it over this weekend.

1989: Big brother or Big sister
Due to some reasons, which I do not know, a small 3 year old girl was asked to wait, all alone, for 2 hours after school (which was 10 kms away from home), so that she can come with her 5 year old brother in the school bus, when his classes end two hours later. On the first day that this set-up was worked on, I was sitting with my (the then) best friend, Aritra Ghosh, concentrating on Ms Berri's class, when my sister comes and stands next to the enterance of the class, crying. Berri miss, then quietly lets her into the class, and she sits right in between me and aritra, crying stopped, in the security of her elder brother.
Evening. The same day. I am out playing with my friend, my bully, a 5 year old, 100 times stronger than a thin, underweight me. And, as always, Kutush (my bully friend) finds an excuse to beat me up ( probably I got him out in cricket and demanded that it is my chance to bat! I dont know, why he would beat me up in such a case though, because, i would have barely batted an over!!!). My little sister, is there somewhere around, either trying to join us in our game, or playing some little game on her own. But then, she spots Kutush beating me up. She rushes to the spot, jumps up on poor kutush, and starts pulling his hair. He may be a bully, but does not have the heart to beat up a 3 year old girl. So, he pulls out of the fight. And now, I stop crying, in the security of my little sister.


1994: Innovative (stupid?) games
I was 11, my sister nearlynine(!)and all the creative and innovative juices were flowing inside us, minus, the weight of what will the world think, kind of feelings, minus the weight of am I acting stupid, minus the weight of having to act mature just because we were in the teens (which would come in a couple of years!), and all I remember of those glorious days were the games that we invented. There was "Journey to the centre of the earth" were we ran round and round the room and tackled all the obsacles that Jules Verne dreamed of and even more, in the quest to reach the middle of the room. There was Tennis during the grand slam times, when apart from actually playing the game in our tiny little room, we had put two chairs, were we would sip lemon juice made during change-over between games, and even put up imaginary fights with the imaginary chair umpire over imaginary decisions!
But the craziest of all would be the one where I used to piggyback her, and was her piggyback robot who used to take her to school and back. This being the basic skeleton of the game, different versions were made, like the one were the circuits went crazy and the robot kidnaps the hapless girl etc etc. And not to forget, our very own bollywood games, complete with ma ki senti, songs, action etc etc.


1998-:Confidant
A nearlyfifteen me, and a sister who is nearlyteen, tough times in life with exams, peer pressure, a pressure to make a stamp among friends, to stand up and be counted, to be liked, to be loved. My teenage got all this and more, and a little prematurely to my sister. One of the strongest memories of those years, when friendship and closeness blossomed, is of a day, when my sister was listing out the most good looking boys in my class, and she slipped me into fourth place!
Seriously, though, the last 7-8 years, so much has changed in each of our lives, and having a confidant, to whom, you can bare your deepest feelings, thoughts which you find a little embarrasing to state in the public, has made the good times even better and has absorbed the shocks of the bad times!


2006-Growing up?
Growing up, probably would be the exact oppositte of the way, we enjoyed the summmer vaction of may 2006. Our antics would have laid a five year old to shame. But we grow up im moments. We will be 15 years and 234 days, but then at that day, a set of events will make us much more older than that. Precisely, what happend with me and my sister and our cousin, late one night. What started as a "tan-kheecho", fun time, slowly turned into a very deeply philospohically set discussion, where we discussed, commented, shared, and grew mature!

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It is so sad that, when in a few years, life will move at such breakneck speeds. when life as we know today will become a distant memory, "education" has kept my sister 1200 kms away from me, so that we can only meet for 30 small days in a year!
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if you are wondering, why I titled the post Scout, refer to "to kill a mocking bird".