30 and still going strong

Damn! I am 30 now. That too, 30 and married. Woah! Talk about a double dose of responsibility.

Had a fun battle at work the other day. Some of the guys, (whose legs I pull mercilessly otherwise) sought to take revenge by punning me with a series of You've tuned 30 jokes.

Below is the sequence of events.

Needless to say, this was WAR!

and this is how i struck back. :)

It's been an awesome life so far. Bring on the 40's! 

And yeah, I kicked ass. 

Prelude: A Legendary Nite at Legends of Rock

The nite that the great return to Mumbai trip was conceived.

It was a regular Friday evening. Was lunching at Mainland China when Ronak gave me a buzz.. Turned out that he was in B'lore for the evening on a field visit and he wanted to catch up. Being the gracious host that I am and also generally wanting to catch up with the Mumbai scene, we made a plan to catch up at LOR.

Accordingly, got back home by 7 from work, and went to LOR at 8. Left word with Nikhil and Kochhi to join us. Abe was in Pune so i expected it to just be the 4 of us. After a few beers and catching up on some legendary Mumbai happenings including the sacking of Happy Singh, the 80 bangings in Bangkok by a team of 5, Nikhil and Kochhar walked in. A few minutes, Chetan walked in with the special guest for the evening, Vinod GM! True to GM's impeccable style, he made his big entry spouting off a one-liner.. There was no Hi, no Hello, but straight.. "Dude, don't ever fkg get married!".. :)

After that the beer obviously flowed, GM and Ronak started competing in some beer bottoms up challenges, where GM kept up his legendary status. Ronak and me started discussing some happenings in Mumbai again, hearing which, Kochhar expressed his long pending desire to see what Mumbai was all about. Being in a very happy state of mind, I immediately suggested that we make a trip to Mumbai to which Kochhar agreed. One phone call to Venzel, and the plan was all set. The great Mumbai trip was on!

Meanwhile, Ronak begun to feel the after-effects of competing with the great GM. That didn't stop us however from doing 4 canons and then going through 2 rounds of shots as well! By then, everyone was on cloud 9 and there were no safe designated drivers left. Having left LOR, we waited down for a good 45 minutes to clear our collective heads. Following which, Nikhil, Pavan and me walked up to Sony World to spot whether the cops had set up a barricade which luckily they hadn't.

We left LOR immediately. As luck would have it, as soon as we reached the signal, the cops were erecting the barricade. We managed to get by in the nick of time, just before the blockage was up. Having reached home, we immediately felt the need to connect with Mumbai to inform of the great plans. Hobri Mana and The Ziggster were duly contacted. And a parallel conversation took place on our cell phones for the next 20 minutes drawing up the bones of the plan. In the midst of a lot of swearing and abusing.

Plans having duly being delt with, the party continued in the sitting room. Chetan begun his legendary 'Channu radio' as Nikhil terms it. Thankfully, I promptly fell asleep with Pavan, Nikhil and Kochhar bearing the brunt of the radio since GM had already moved off to la-la land.

In the morning, when I woke up, I was lying on my bed. I have no re-collection of how I got there! My last memories were sleeping, lying down on the floor. That part of the night remains a mystery to me!

and thats how the plan for the great Mumbai trip was conceived!

The Wedding weekend

2 weekends back, I celebrated as 2 of my closest friends united in holy matrimony and committed to serve one another for the rest of their lives. It was a beautiful ceremony and i of course had a front row seat being as i was , one of the best men for the wedding.

As of course with all weddings, the pre-wedding activity was as much fun as the actual wedding itself. After arriving on Thursday morning, was basically at home till evening. Due to the lack of a bike, i ended up riding to Carmona on Alex's 20 year old Yamaha RX 100 picking Ryan up along the way. Man, did that bring some old memories rushing back.! Pretty much my entire engineering life!!

and on with the 'ros'. Luckily for us, the rest of the gang were running late and hence i escaped most of the wrath. Even then, we had to make our way through Eggs, Red jelly, green porridge, a milk packet and finally a cold cold beer!! n then the chills waiting in turn for a bath. After which, we settled out on the porch chatting till about 12 with our glasses of Kingfisher, Chivas and Jack Daniels.

the next day was free, so just did my investments for the year. completed that and then went shopping with Miku for shoes and stuff. Also went to check out a new bike for Dada (which i guess he has already picked up by now)

Saturday was the great wedding day. Lev looked so composed and Bunny, so ultra beautiful. it feels so great when 2 people who love each other so much get hitched. The 2 cudnt keep their lips off each other though, taking their PDA to a whole new level altogether (the church, Fisherman's Wharf and the hall).

Sunday, i spent a chilled out day watching TV from sunrise to sundown.
Monday and Tuesday were kickass days. Met Sid and Anuj for lunch and then caught up with the entire gang in the night, played cricket and poker on the jetty till 2 a.m.!! and that of course brought back memories of all the cricket sessions at Varca, rugby at Varca, farewell barbeque, football at Candolim etc... If only, we could re-live those moments!!
Lastly on Tuesday, went to Deepvihar School and met all of my old teachers. Few of them remembered me, but all of them were super excited to see us and very glad to know that we had done well in careers. Got a few blessings from them as well. Truly, a wonderful experience.

The Sunday Gospel

Was today thinking on a random status message...In order to live a long life, we need to eat healthy, give up all vices, no drinks or smokes, no late nights, safe sex with a single partner, no cholesterol filled oily food, no spur of the moment non-veg food. Guess the thought came post yesterday's marathon session of eating at Paradise, MOD, Theobroma's, Cafe Churchill, Moshe's, and the movie at Sterling cinema...While, giving up the vices would be a healthier life, as a young single male, probably the boredom of not doing anything with your time would kill you instead at an early age..!!

The watchman and I had an argument about late nights and how talking to women is not allowed coz it conveys a bad image. me and society seem to have such radically opposite views. Ideally the 2 should co-exist peacefully as i dont aim to interfere in anyone else's life and ideally i dont want anyone to do so in mine..Unfortunately, because of third party bad mistakes, my generation had got a bad name and we are all labeled as 'spoilt brat young bachelors'... in some cases, its just honestly about just doing SOMETHING, ANYTHING just to kill time before time kills you!!..

The priest in his sermon today somehow managed to touch on this same very topic today upon how the devil convinces us to take a short term view and look to enjoy as much as possible on earth so that our souls would go to hell...it is really essential to believe in the concept of heaven coz without that concept, there would be no concept of good or evil and thus everyone would be free to do as they please without reflecting on the effect they have on others...there are unfortunately very few individuals who truly believe in being good without a vested interest....for the rest of us, we need to believe that there would be a return with our sacrifices now being paid off for by eternal bliss in heaven!!

The Ayodhya verdict

there were a lot of opinions abt today's verdict. One in particular that i liked was Aristo's and Sankho's (shared view on FB) :

I remember-in school a big bully came and took away my bar of chocolate. We fought. I hit him. He hit me, more than I could hit him.

And then along came the teacher who taught us about reconciliation and compromise, divided it between the 2 of us and sent us our ways.
Was I happy with the decision? No. Because his share of chocolate was never meant for him. It was always mine to begin with.

My take on the same is its difficult to separate out theology from fact, at some point of time , the 2 intersperse and you cant tell which is what, its like Leo's wife in Inception who loses the ability to tell the dream sequences from reality. The real people who know the truth are the man who lived in those times coz eventually history is written by the victor. In our times, its essential to maintain peace and harmony and if this was the best way to achieve it then so be it.

At the end of the day, i am just happy with the half day that we were awarded!! :)

a cissy thought

How is it that 6 terms of barely 2-3 months each , all have separate memories and moments attached that continue to haunt my dreams, while the last 18 months just seem to have flown by in a jiffy with absolutely no re-collection of anything other than a few good weekends?

That 70's show

i been on a that 70's show spree lately...finished 5 seasons in abt a month.. the show has everything...the amount of drama that the show has discussed without losing its comic charm is amazing....right from the first season, if u consider the kind of really serious issues that are considered...on the macro level, post vietnam, american soldiers trauma, unemployment following the collapse of american army and nixon gate...on a personal issue, how a family deals with day to day problems of lack of money with father losing his job, mother working triple shifts to keep the fires burning, strained relations between father and son to enforce discipline, hippie culture displayed via smokes and drinks, loosely moralled hippie sister who's a major nympho , the girl next door, pre-marital sex and early pregnancy, how couples turn to desperate measures to save marraige, effects that parents splitting up have on their kids, survival of the kids who live on the streets, cheating amongst teenagers....man,,,,thats a long list and i am just about getting started!!!

Neways, this is my tribute to a GREAT show which can actually manage to be ultra humourous whilst depicting such major problems both in history and society that shaped american culture and the world at large

n now back to season 6 of that 70's show!!