"What do you do on weekends?"

"What do you do on weekends?", asked Rohit.
I said "I read books, clean my room, and sleep".
"How interesting", said Rohit but the look in his eye told me that he thought it was going to be a boring lunch with me. After all, what is "interesting" about reading books, cleaning and sleeping? Nothing. And upon reflecting about the answer I gave, I too started having doubts about my "interestingness".

But then, serious adventurers are known to have a very high co-efficient of excitation. In English, it means that unless there’s something really really wild to do, they'll be engaged in the kind of "interesting" acts listed above. Only a very whacky idea gets them going and that was exactly what got me going last weekend.

I had slept enough for a day, also had had a very heavy lunch and also read a lot. So, going by the norms, I was being myself on this particular day. In the evening I decided to go to my uncle’s place, in Kothrud Pune, like I do on most weekends. So I packed for an overnight stay and started. Since the bike was almost dry I decided to tank up. While waiting in the line to get fuel, I noticed a guy up ahead of me all suited up, gloves, scarf’s, bags tied to the rear seat with bungee cords etc. Wow! a real biker, I thought. On closer inspection I realized that he was a vacuum cleaner sales man. All that gear was on because he probably had to do a lot of calls during the day. It had nothing to do with riding out, but that switched something in me to "ON". The next thing I am doing is withdrawing cash from an ATM and calling my uncle to tell him that there has been a change in plan.

Nagpur is almost 800Km from Pune. I decided to ride to Nagpur thro the night!!
Why? for 3 reasons -
1. My parents were there for some days and this would be a good chance to meet them.
2. My mother was unwell and thus, it would be good if I could be there to offer some support. Later she would be sicker on learning that I rode thru the night to be with her!!
3. I had nothing else to do.
I was on my way by around 7.00pm. I only had a very faint idea about the route, meaning I knew I am starting from Pune and had to reach Nagpur and that there’s a town called Ahmednagar en route. That’s about it!!

I reach Ahmednagar by 9.45pm because the weekend traffic was heavy and the roads were dug up and also because I was riding slowly. Stopped at a petrol bunk and filled petrol for Rs.50. I was already almost full but did not want to take any chances.
The road after Ahmednagar was excellent, except for some craters, that would have tested a T90 (an army tank) to the limits, and I reach Aurangabad at 11.00pm.
The guys at a petrol bunk in Aurangabad bunk didn’t know what to say, when I told them that am riding to Nagpur. Here I filled petrol for Rs.150.

I must admit that I was mighty apprehensive about the whole plan right from the start. I had never done anything close to this distance ever. Leave alone riding at night. All along, up to this point I was telling myself, there’s nothing to worry and that I can back out anytime. I had the money, and if things went really bad I could check into a hotel anywhere and forget about the journey. Anyways I had not shared this with anyone, so no one would know that I failed a solo attempt and thus the ego damage would be minimal.

The ride from Aurangabad to Jalna was the most difficult part of the journey. I was starting to get sleepy, a bit, I thought I was getting hungry, cause I had not had anything since lunch, and most importantly the "me" part of the trinity "I, me and myself" which forms me as a whole was beginning to make my life difficult. "I" was always having this argument with "me" right from the start about the whole thing with "myself" playing referee and offering suggestions and contingency plans.

Now at 12.00 midnight, I was reaching the PNR and things had to be settled. And so they did. “Myself” offered his last plan and all three of us merged seamlessly back into a single entity and continued riding. There were no more doubts or fears about anything. There was only one thing to do, ride. The night was clear and cruising at 90kmph, the only sound I could hear was that of my engine, and see the road only up to the point where the high-beam disappeared into the darkness.

I drifted off the highway at around 1.00am and rode into some town. Thankfully, I was guided back on track by a localite. From this point on the journey was very very loney and sometimes it would be 20 minutes before I could spot a truck or a car. It was getting cold and I had to put on my other tee shirt. I also tied a handkerchief around my neck to try and keep it warm. Thankfully I always carried a pair of gloves with me.
I took a break at 2.00am when I spotted two men hunched over a small campfire. They were very kind to me and directed me further, with a bit of advise: not to tell anyone that I've come from Pune and going to Nagpur. They said if I have to stop and speak to anyone all I should be telling is that am from some town nearby. They also quickly gave me plenty of reasons why one should not be travelling alone. That part of the state had supposedly a higher number of dacoits etc.

After a 10 min break I started again and lost my way again after an hour or so. Not that I was nervous, but I couldn’t help imagining a female running next to my bike. This was from a ghost story I had heard from my friend Ashwini. Apparently, while travelling late in the night, bikers used to come across a young female trying to get a lift. If they stopped, she disappeared, but if they did not, she ran along with them for some distance! What had happened was that this couple was riding late in the night and had an accident. The guy was killed or almost killed while the girl tried her best to get some help. Since no one stopped, she too succumbed to her injuries, died and became a ghost. How convenient! That was near Indore though. I freak easily so I just tried my best to imagine a beautiful ghost instead of an injured one. This time I had to flag down a car since there was no one in sight. Well, it was 3.00am. The people in the car were helpful and I followed them for another hour or so until I had to change direction.

At 4.00 am I stopped for tea at a dhaba and was around 250km short of reaching my destination. The dhaba was actually closed but the dhabawala was kind enough to make some strong-sweet tea for me. I enquired about a petrol bunk nearby and he told me that all of them would open only at 7.00am.
When I restarted I was low on fuel and had to cruise at 50km-60km to save fuel. This part of the journey was very tiring. I was chilled to the bone, low on fuel, my shoulders were aching, and my right hand was going numb from time to time. I rode like this for almost 3 hours and also encountered a dead body in the middle of the road. I was already slow and had to slow down further to maneuver past it. It looked like a hit and run case, or whatever but I did not have it in me to stop and investigate! And it was sometime since it was lying there since there was this foul odor emanating from it. I know about the odors of dead bodies because I had volunteered in the Gujrat Earthquake Relief operations and had dug out several bodies that had been trapped in debris for more than a week.

The sunrise at 6.30am was beautiful because it brought with a promise of much needed warmth. I don’t remember ever waiting for the sun to rise like I did on this particular night. I realized that I had been riding for almost 12 hours now. At around 6.45am I spotted a petrol bunk at a town called Pulgaon refilled for Rs.100 and was on my way again.

I reached my home at around 8.00am and surprised everyone. It took them the better part of the day to come to terms with what I had done. As expected, I was not allowed to ride back to Pune and the bike was sent by train. I took a bus back home 2 days later.

So that was it. That was what I did on this particular weekend. I am after all “interesting”.

I Shouldn’t Be Alive

Its been almost 2 months into my new job and I have enjoyed every day of it.
Although there hasn’t been single day when I have not compared it to my previous job,
it has not been the routine kind of comparison that one tends to make after a switch.
The comparisons have led me to mail my previous bosses and colleagues, thanking them for contributing towards my professional and personal growth.
(No, its not because I thought I should try insure myself against the economic meltdown and the obvious effects on the IT sector.)
So, here I was, having a sumptuous meal in the spacious eighth floor canteen with my team member and ex-team members and as is the natural order of things, after sometime, the conversation settled down on the obvious.
Now, all of us have some kinds of, to be a little technical, a hashmap, which defines a key, value pair. These hashmaps are numerous for all the kinds of experiences, people, relationships, "you-name-it-you-got-it", etc that we encounter, meet and have.
In the context of our professional experiences one of the maps we might have is the one describing the relationship between the designation a person has and the roles and responsibilities that need to be carried out.
Coming back to the obvious discussion that was in progress, all of us started dumping our hash maps w.r.t the one person that was in everyone’s map.
The key in this case was obviously the same in every case but the values were all pretty different. While some of them had a very philosophical view towards the value in their map and some of them had straight away attributed it to the I.Q, still others were blaming themselves for having had to insert such a key-value pair in the first place. I thought I was going a step further (or rather backwards) when I was querying as to who would have created such a key-values pair in the first place, when one of the ex-team member stumped all of us with what he had to offer.
Apparently, he did not stop at analyzing the value but went ahead and shared with us the effect of the key that he was experiencing. Towards the end of the meal, all we had for him was sympathy.
For the key-value pair that he had in his map, all he had to say was "I shouldn’t be alive".

And you think your boss makes your life miserable?

Look before you leap

"Be careful for what you wish, your prayers might just be answered", is my new and improved version of the famous idiom. Back then I could have never imagined that things can go so horribly wrong. Its been more than a decade since the classic "break off" and I find myself unable to move on completely. Now is such a thing so difficult after all? Maybe, maybe not. Although one might be tempted to say that its not so difficult, given the time, and all, to really make an educated guess (I wonder who would want to quantify such a thing, but this just seems the effect of the process documents I'm reading at the new job!) about the difficulty level, one needs to know what went into the relationship rather than what caused it to crumble. In my case, one thing; one powerful thing; a prayer. Yes, I used to pray a lot back then and only for one thing - to keep us, the happy couple, together forever. Unfortunately the prayers have been answered. So even now, after almost everything we tend to be attached in some way.
Although I am not praying otherwise, if anyone knows an "undo prayer" technique please let me know.

Kidnap

Arun, born 13th October, 1981, in Gods own Country, could have never imagined what lay in store for him.

The place where I work at, Skyscape, brought an AMC from one of India's reputed organizations. Arun was chosen the resident engineer and was to be "on-site", in our company, maintaining our machines, so that we could continue to produce world-class software for the millions of medical professionals around the world who are also our loyal customers. Incidentally, Arun and me happened to stay in the same locality and soon were good friends. Or so he thought.

We would ride home each evening on my bike and sometimes hang out on weekends. On the 3rd of October, Friday, I was supposed to go shopping for my b'day gift. My b'day is on 6th Oct and if I was able to produce the bill of the purchase, my company would reimburse me.

No points for guessing that Arun accompanied me to the store. After a lot of window-shopping we decided to go for the real thing. Soon, it was closing time at the mall and a t-shirt with a hood (if that’s what it is called) was selected and we were on our way out. having nothing better to do after that Arun suggested that we watch the movie Kidnap, because althought the reviews were poor, the lead actress was supposed to be doing some hot numbers. I had a better idea.

I told him that we would play the age old game "kidnapper- kidnapee", just like "chor-police". "WHAT?" was his response. Anyways, I could not sell him the idea but still wanted to do something that I was planning for quite sometime now; Ride thro the Khandala-Lonavala ghat in the dead of the night. So I put on my jacket and helmet and off we were. The time was 10.30 pm.

The whole thing was pretty insane and frankly I was scared to do it alone. The "bakra" was sitting behind me. Now there’s a rule of my bike. The pillion rider has to keep singing. Its almost as if the bike accelerates because of the song rather than the fuel. We reached our destination at around 12.15, not because it was so far off, but because we went along at a slow and steady pace, enjoying the chilly night and wide open roads. We literally too a u-turn at the center of the town and headed back, stopping only for a small post midnight snack: 2 aanda bhurjis, one omelet, two cuttings and a cream cone. The small meal cost us Rs.80. On a normal day in Mumbai, all things considered, that would have cost me no more than Rs.40. But that is different story.

One the way down, I cheerfully asked Arun if he was enjoying the "midnight adventure". This was the chance he was looking for and screamed at the top of his voice "You're riding like a fool, have a helmet and a jacket and are comfortable protected against the cold, I have nothing and you ask me if I am enjoying the whole thing?”. Needless to say, I did not have any more questions for him, but I must admit that he had a point there.

I guess he was feeling "kidnapped" after all.

See you soon..

On Sunday, 21st September, I received a sms stating that my friend's, Ashutosh, also my colleague, mother had passed away. She had been battling a fatal disease for sometime now and this was the day when the fight was over.

I was unable to make it to his place on the same day, but was there following day with the rest of my colleagues. Upon entering his house we found his father sitting on a mat with several relatives. He invited us all in and exhibited no trace of sorrow or anguish. We were briefed on the happenings of the past few months up to the time of the tragedy. Ashutosh's father then showed us a family album. Amidst all this, Ashutosh, who had gone to select a frame for his mothers picture called me and instructed all of us to leave the house and wait for him near the entrance of the building. Reason? His father, a heart patient, was advised not to talk too much.

Two things struck me at once. First, Ashutosh, instead of being at home and mourning the loss, was up and performing his duties. And second, he was fully aware of his father’s condition and had the presence of mind to call and instruct us about what we should be doing.

Following his orders, we went out of the house, towards the gate and waited for him. Ashutosh arrived shortly and met us. Of all the things he said, that which I will never forget is -

"On Saturday, I had my mother. On Sunday all I have is a memory."

Makes me wonder about the things we really need to look forward to and cherish.

[This post is dedicated to Ashutosh and the courage he displayed in testing times.]

Mike is dead.

This is one of my favourite jokes - 

-----------------------------------------

Two guys meet up in a bar. The first one asks, "Did your hear the news - Mike is dead??!!!" 

"Woah, what the hell happened to him?" 

"Well he was on his way over to my house the other day and when he arrived outside the house he didn't brake properly and boom - He hit the curb, the car flipped over and he crashed through the sunroof - Went flying through the air and smashed through my upstairs bedroom window." 

"What a horrible way to die!" 

"No no, he survived that, that didn't kill him at all. So, he's landed in my upstairs bedroom and he's all covered in broken glass on the floor. Then, he spots the big old antique wardrobe we have in the room and reaches up for the handle to try to pull himself up. He's just dragging himself up when bang, this massive wardrobe comes crashing down on top of him, crushing him and breaking most of his bones." 

"What a way to go, that's terrible!" 

"No no, that didn't kill him he survived that. He managed to get the wardrobe off him and crawls out onto the landing, he tries to pull himself up on the banister but under his weight, the banister breaks and he goes falling down on to the first floor. In mid air, all the broken banister poles spin and fall on him, pinning him to the floor, sticking right through him." 

"Now that is the most unfortunate way to go!" 

"No no, that didn't kill him, he even survived that. So he's on the downstairs landing, just beside the kitchen. He crawls in to the kitchen, tries to pull himself up on the stove, but reached for a big pot of boiling hot water, whoosh, the whole thing came down on him and burned most of his skin off him." 

"Man, what a way to go!" 

"No no, he survived that, he survived that! He's lying on the ground, covered in boiling water and he spots the phone and tries to pull himself up, to call for help, but instead he grabs the light switch and pulls the whole thing off the wall and the water and electricity didn't mix and so he got electrocuted, wallop, 10,000 volts shot through him." 

"Now that is one awful way to go!" 

"No no, he survived that..." 

"Hold on now, just how the hell did he die?" 

"I shot him!" 

"You shot him? What the hell did you shoot him for?" 

"He was wrecking my house."

Spices (or why I sould carry loose change)

The last working Friday of every month is a, sort of a, holiday in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai. 

All the shops and businesses are closed except for medical facilities and dairies. A very funny thing indeed. And irritating too for me, since I don't cook at home and depend on the hotels for my meals.

This time I decided to linger around in the office till dinnertime, dine at Vashi, and then go home. At around 7.00pm Xavier, my former team lead, came up to me and inquired why was I staying back late in the office? I told him and he laughed and invited me to Sonia, his regular mess.

Me and Xavier share a good relationship: as good as a team lead and a team member share. So, I made him wait for another hour and at around 8.00pm we headed for Sonia. I was looking forward to a lot of "purotha", "double anda-curry", "ommelette", "cabbage sabzi" and a sprite, all being my favourites. This mess is close to the place I had stayed earlier and is closer to a classy joint, Spices. I had lived for almost 2 years right opposite to Spices but had never been there. As we passed, I told this to Xavier. He was probably waiting for an opportunity not to go to Sonia and and immediately said that we should then go to Spices. I was a bit reluctant, since it was the end of the month and I was low on cash. (my month end status begins roughly on the 13th of every month). He sensed my plight and said that the dinner would be on him. I was thrilled since I had always wanted to check this place out. 

There's valet parking (even for motorbikes) at Spices and I was feeling pretty "elite" (I had only Rs.400 on me at that time, but who cares?). We requested for a table near the window and got one. The usual stuff followed: Vodka for Xavier and a Virgin Mango Bellini for me. Chilly paneer was our starter and when it came to the main course, I decided to take the best. I ordered a mushroom sizzler for me and a lamb-sizzler for Xavier. He deserved the best, since he was paying for the meal. The sizzlers arrived after 15 minutes and we were the center of attention for about 2 minutes until the sizzle died down. I was unable to finish my dish but did not ask for the leftovers to be packed. However, Xavier did justice to the lamb.

While Xavier asked for the bill, I looked outside and saw the valet re-parking my motorcycle. I thought I should tip him and decided that Rs.5 would be enough. I dug into my wallet and found that I did not have the exact change. I thought of asking Xavier but- here's the scene.
I make Xavier wait for an hour in the office until it’s "my" dinnertime.
I jump on the suggestion that we dine at a pricey place.
The dinner is on him.
I order overpriced dishes for us. (again, since he is paying!).
And now, I want him to tip the valet also, for my motorcycle!! (no one said there's a limit on being cheap!)

Well, I could have never lived with this and I tell him that the bill is going to be split. He is surprised and refuses at first, but I am adamant and he finally agrees. So we split the bill and then I ask him for the change to tip the valet.

I could not believe this happened.