I paid what I thought was a reasonable rate for the books, clothes, tv, washing machine, bicycle, utensils and other miscellaneous items that I shipped out, given the net value of the goods. Much to my disappointment, the goods were delayed by two additional weeks, ensuring that I had to live out of my suitcase for more time than I’d have liked.

That psychological feeling of settling in hadn’t sunk in completely thanks to the fact that my not-so-immaterial material positions possessions were still in transit somewhere. I found out during the course of the long, agonizing wait that the truck carrying my belongings was involved in an accident that lead to the death of the driver. The packers and movers claimed that the delay was as a result of this untoward incident.

When my stuff finally arrived late this afternoon, the cartons seemed mauled and the meticulous effort that that I had put in into laying out content to make it easier for the packers seemed to have been wasted, and how.

The cartons seemed to have been through a sumo wrestling match and some of my treasured books had been bent out of shape in a way that I’d not imagined paperbacks could be twisted into.

My copy of “The Last of the Just” by Andre Schwarz-Bart has been martyred, as has my copy of “Video Night in Kathmandu” by Pico Iyer. A couple of other books have also gone through rough days, but with careful nursing, they should be back to good condition, especially with nice, thick covers around them.

My beautiful Trek 3700, sadly has borne the brunt of the assault on my belongings, with the rear tire bent so badly out of shape that it looks like a big fat black ribbon. Mercifully, the good folks at Bums on the Saddle are not too far away from where I live, and I can go there and see how to make the best of a bad situation.

I’m just counting my blessings that my goods showed up, one way or the other. I have a good mind to sue them unprofessional packers and movers and there is a distinct possibility that I might. I will post the series of events should that happen as time goes by.

The other thing I can do, in addition to not being a cheaper than usual guy is to move only within the city or ensure that I am driving the bloody truck that carries my stuff the next time around, should unforeseen circumstances make me move out of Bangalore.

That was the bad part, so to speak.

On the other hand, a lot of good has been happening as well. I joined my new job in Bangalore sans a break on August 1st and have been at it for a fortnight now. I worked on Independence Day and partly on both the Sundays during my brief tenure here.

I’m enjoying what the job entails and enjoying Bangalore and its oh-so-delightfully salubrious climate. Adjusting to life in Bangalore has been easy, and I feel like USB drive, plug-and-play style. Friends are around aplenty and the lack of effort required to develop a social eco-system post-shifting has been heartening.

There’s also been random walks in the light, drizzly rain with my office in my backpack and the leisurely BMTC bus rides that give me time to reflect and think of what to do when I get to where I have to next during my quite random work days.

There was a really nice thing that happened to me just this evening. It was raining and I took my umbrella out to walk to the KFC that is located 300 metres away from my apartment (beat that!). I was listening to a really nice song and walking away, only to get to the store at exactly 2300.

The store remained open and I got my boneless chicken strips with salsa, much to my relief. Depriving oneself of a 1 AM snack is the kind of abuse I will never put my mind or my body through.

However, this was not the best part.

The really nice song I was listening to? It got over at the very moment I stepped into KFC. I took my ear plugs out to place my order only to realize that the same song *just* began playing again within the store.

On some days, that is all that is needed to make you realize that the heart of life is good.

I had lived in Bangalore until 31st March 2009, following which, I had lived in Hyderabad and in Gurgaon. Two years and four months of traipsing around has made me realize that Bangalore is the most comfortable Indian city for me to live in (with the exception of Mysore, which is beyond any list, in just the same way as those that you love are excluded from any best-of lists that you’d compile).

After a sixteen month stint in Gurgaon that involved multiple visits to Mysore, with Bangalore being my transit point, I was sufficiently enticed to be part of the returning diaspora and discard the quite crazy, albeit highly entertaining life up north in search of salubrious climes, moderated lifestyles and armed with a yearning to grow roots in a particular place.

For the most part since I moved out of home seven years ago, I’ve always felt this strong feeling of transience that accompanied my stay at most of the places I lived in, including Gurgaon. Previously, I was keen on studying further and as a result, chose not to get fully committed to a particular place by making huge investments in home appliances, in renting a comfortable house and settling in, because I knew that this wouldn’t last forever. The same happened in Hyderabad because of studies and was happening in Gurgaon as well.

Gurgaon seemed like a wonderful place with which you could have numerous one night stands, but didn’t seem like a place one could enter into a long term relationship with. Of course, YMMV.

Bangalore, on the other hand is comfortable, familiar, promising and is close enough but not too close to my hometown and was thus the most obvious place to settle in. It does have its cons – bad traffic, mediocre infrastructure ripped apart by the construction of the metro and has a way of life that I still at some level consider too fast paced for my Mysorean demeanour.

However, Bangalore is also a place that is supremely chilled out. It lets you be. It allows you to wallow in your sloth and throws things at you that you can choose to dodge or embrace wholeheartedly. It is placed beautifully at the appropriate intersection of the NED and the GTD mindsets.

On Sunday, the only day off for me in the new job I am at, I took a walk around where I live. The sidewalk is dug up on the main road and with the rains, it is quite inconvenient to walk around. But I took a long, 5 km walk all around JP Nagar in order to scout for furniture to setup a home office and to pick up essentials for my new place and was able to get everything except for nice laundry baskets and an appropriately priced carpet for my living room.

Walking around, I discovered this seedy hotel near Sarakki layout where I had lived at in September 2004 when I’d just arrived in the city. My first firm had put me and the other new joinees there, unaware that there were unsavoury characters who walked the hotel corridors at night, scaring the daylights out of fresh engineering graduates who were trying to engage in whispered conversations with their then girlfriends who lived in other cities not so far away.

As I passed it by, listening to ‘Summer’ by Joe Hisaishi from one of my favourite mp3 mixtapes of all time by Beatzo, I was glad that I would never have to live in that stupid hotel again. I also realized how, just like that long walk I took on that beautiful Sunday afternoon, things have a way of coming full circle, but that time separation shall ensure that the twain shall never meet. Mercifully so.

On my first day in Gurgaon, as I walked into cybercity, not knowing what to expect, I was listening to Winding Road by Bonnie Sommerville, hoping that someday I’d find my way home. That song eventually became such a big influence that it crept into my limited musical repertoire for party entertainment as well.

As I stood at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on 31st December 2010, I prayed for “next year in Bangalore”. Apt, since my wish of wanting to spend “next year in Jerusalem” was already granted.

I’m glad my prayers were answered. It is good to be back in Bangalore and back to bedlam.

Truth be told, my first job was one that I had soon after I had completed class 12.

In July 2000, I’d taken the Karnataka CET and was waiting for the engineering admissions to begin. There was the usual bullshit that accompanied seat allocation in engineering colleges and some ranking revision to add to the mayhem.The confusion led to delays in the process which eventually led to a delay in the start date of all courses. My class 12 board exams had been done with by 24th March and the CET exams were also done by 9th of May.

I had nearly five months of blissful unemployment and I wasn’t sure of what to do. Mooching off my folks to do something outrageously random was out of the question. What helped my situation, in retrospect, was the fact that I wasn’t quite cognizant of the gravity of the situation and that while most of my contemporaries seemed to have a plan, I was quite content with just drifting and seeing how four years of engineering college turned out.

I wasn’t looking forward to it too much, to be honest. Having chosen electronics and communication as my major after using the tried and tested method of ‘inky-pinky-ponky’ at the seat selection process in Bangalore, I was quite unsure of what to expect.

However, seeing so many people that would qualify as borderline retards getting through the course before me gave me enough solace. The only thing I was reasonably certain of, if nothing else was my intelligence. In retrospect, I shouldn’t even have ruminated and wasted that amount of time, dabbling away in uncertainty.

Five months and nothing to do. It was around that time that I began discovering the internets, with browsing centers mushrooming all over Mysore. Some of them were offering decent hourly rates and I chanced upon one such that was slightly far away from home, but was cheap enough to offset the pedaling distance that I had to cover both ways on my trusty bicycle.

Inspired by all the books I read about kids having summer jobs, I decided to get one for myself and to that effect, I spoke to the owner of the 24 hour browsing center, that was also doubling up at Mysore’s first internet service provider. The browsing center was located in Kuvempunagar in a house, with the computers on the ground floor and what passed off as the corporate office on the first floor.

The owner was caught off-guard by the fact that I just walked into his cabin and said that I wanted to make some pocket money in the summer. I was then introduced to the staff and was asked to work Mondays through Saturdays for at least eight hours. I was allowed to drink all the coffee I wanted and I could browse for free. At the end of each month, I was promised a princely sum of INR 750 and I was kicked beyond belief.

Some of the most interesting times I have ever had at a job have been during the one month that I spent there.

There was Rakesh, the owner of the place who was a sound and sensible chap, whose hiring methods seemed suspect after I had spent one day at the job. The other people that worked there seemed like characters straight out of a loony bin.

Firstly, there was B, the accountant lady who had a perpetually surly expression on her face. Whoever was managing the browsing center and allocating PCs for customers to surf at was required to record the time. B would tally the books at the end of each day, collect money and sign off to close books for the day. She was unnecessarily rude to me at the outset, but warmed up enough to discuss problems and tell me about how the other people at the office would bitch her out and how her folks wanted to get her married soon. One particular evening, she narrated her situation while getting teary-eyed and I remember telling her that I was seventeen and that I didn’t know what to do or say.

There was P, the cocky, self-assured chap who had setup the systems. He would regularly snoop to look at what other people were browsing on and occasionally meddle with people’s computers using WinVNC from the main system that used to monitor the connections. When I told him that he wasn’t doing the right thing, he told me to get lost and mind my own business.

Being a 24 hour browsing center, there were occasions when I’ve been present overnight and certain others when I’ve woken up as early at 5 AM to cycle in pitch darkness along the edges of Kukkarahalli lake in Mysore to get to work.

If the staff was full of people straight out of the funny farm, the customers were a few notches above, insofar as their level of crazy was concerned. I encountered the Indian version of the perpetually online slobs that were addicted to the internet. These guys, that were part of the great unwashed, actually had food stuck in their beards and would spend eight to ten hours straight browsing away late at night.

The browsing center was frequented by a few chaps that wanted seats whose monitors weren’t visible to the others so they could peacefully access gay porn sites (I know this because the parent system would display what sites were being visited by each user). There were other people that were addicted to internet relay chat to a point where they’d browse all night, sipping away on endless cups of coffee that I’d deliver to their browsing stations on a tray.

On the flip-side, there were people that were genuinely interested in trying out ‘this internet thing’ as they’d come and tell me, and I take pride in having setup the first email address for many a newbie web-surfer. In fact, a few months after I quit this job, I was asked by my class 12 biology teacher to help her navigate the web.

I learnt a lot of stuff on my first job. Most of it good, some of it bad. It helped me understand people better and exposed me to individuals that I wouldn’t have encountered in my (until then) sheltered existence. I got my first paycheck and I learnt that internet usage and browsing can be monitored extensively even if browsing histories are deleted. This has taught me to never, ever, ever, ever, ever open a website that I didn’t want traced back to me in a corporate setup. Surf p0rn only at home, basically.

I quit the job after a month because I joined guitar classes and I wasn’t able to juggle class and work at the same time. Simultaneously, I’d stopped having fun there. I’m surprised by how 17 year old Hari knew when to call it quits, because as I’ve grown older, I’ve had some trouble discontinuing stuff when I have stopped enjoying myself. Not anymore, though.

In retrospect, the decision to quit and continue with guitar classes turned out to be the best decision ever, thanks to all the good times that knowing to play the guitar brought about in my life.

I was just involved in a discussion on cookery shows with another buddy of mine, which followed from the last episode of season 14 in South Park and there’s many things I thought of as a result of that conversation.

After I moved out of my parents’ place, I have lived my own for almost seven years, mostly in Bangalore, Hyderabad and now Gurgaon. I’ve had to learn cooking to survive and I’ve decided that I will devote extensive time in the future towards mastering and honing my culinary skills, both as a means of addressing my strong need to eat good food and also because cooking, in my opinion is an art form that can provide much delight.

Eating out extensively during this time, both by choice and by compulsion has led to me having some observations on food that I wanted to pen down, to revisit during those times when my passion for food would probably wane in the face of life getting in the way, so that I can renew my faith in my gastronomic forays once again.

1. Local food (in India) is awesome: An open mind and an open heart are supposedly two necessary pre-requisites to being a good person. This applies to food as well and getting out of one’s food comfort zone to sample the local fare in whatever part of the country one is in makes for great experiences.

Our country has a maddening range of local food options and the difference in cuisine is evident across small distances. Karnataka food, for instance is different along the coast, in North Karnataka and even towards the south in Bangalore and Mysore. Each style of cuisine, in turn, is splendid and there’s enough variety for one to keep cycling through and not get bored of the food.

For instance, when I was living in Bangalore, there used to be this little place that served jowar rotis with different dal and curry at a reasonable rate and they’d pack it well. Being a ten minute walk away from where I stayed in Banashankari stage 3, this was an awesome place to head out to in order to have some tasty, nutritious food.

2. Never write off vegetarian food: There’s a constant tussle between vegetarians and non-vegetarians regarding the respective virtues of each type of food. I’ve been on both sides and even though I’ve enjoyed Al-Kauser’s galouti and kakori kebabs on many a wintry evening (and I am drooling as I write this) and had some fantastic conveyor belt sushi at the Yum Yum Tree, the best meals I can recall having in my entire life are vegetarian.

Great food isn’t only about the taste, but also about the time when you eat it. For instance, here’s a post I wrote nearly four years ago about the best meal I have had in my life.

Another memorable set of meals that I have consumed were the packed lunches prepared by the women’s self-help group kitchen at Anegundi. Tasty, low on oil, nutritious and brilliant beyond words.

The supposed lack of vegetarian options abroad is also a myth, with vegetarianism and vegan lifestyles percolating through into the most ardent meat consuming regions on the planet that people want to travel to. Of course, the definition of ‘vegetarian’ might vary, but that is a minor matter that is of very little concern to me personally.

3. Fine Dining is worth the money paid for it: Fine dining is part of experimenting with cuisine. Cuisines from different parts of Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and even from the Americas can all be amazing. However, for someone to cook it the right way to maintain authentic taste by using the right ingredients might cost a lot more here than it does in the place of origin of said food item.

Quite obvious, I’d reckon, considering how even across India, staple food in one place is considered reasonably exotic elsewhere. There still is no justification to charge INR 50 for a plate of idlis here in the NCR, but I’d consume it regardless, simply because any South Indian food going into a South Indian’s belly is always a good thing.

What one would pay for, insofar as fine dining is concerned is the authenticity, expertise as well as the ambience and if this is infrequent, the price paid for it however high, albeit within the bounds of affordability is well worth it.

4. Always Experiment: Every single time I end up going to a place alone, or with people that are keen on experimenting, I order something I’ve not eaten before. This is how I discovered food like Kakiage Don, Po’boys, Clam Chowder, Doro Wat with Injera and many other memorable food items that I am grateful to have consumed.

As nutrition expert Adelle Davis said, “We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us be much more than what we are.”

Lunch time. Later!

A self-imposed limit on the size of blog-posts has led to me breaking down extremely lengthy posts into two or more parts, as the occasion demands it.

The story so far documents the highlights of my life and times in the first half of 2010 with the rest to follow here onwards.

July 2010:

• June 2010 made me realize that the feeling of being settled is quite unsettling in itself. The itinerant in me was awakened strongly enough for me to make ad-hoc trips to places that I badly wanted to visit. I made a weekend trip to Kasauli and the mountains once again proved why they are so beautiful, so alluring and so much more better to be in compared to life in the plains.
• Weekend randomness continued as frequent visits to the RSJ office, to some of Delhi’s more popular sights and on the newly opened Gurgaon to Qutab Minar Delhi Metro line kept me preoccupied and sane.
• Hung out at Chandni Chowk enough to realize that the romanticism associated with it is strongly-overrated for a passer-by and that knowing someone on the inside of Delhi 6 might help in relating to all that has been said and written about what a magical place it is.

August 2010:

• The second visit to the ISB campus after graduation. A bunch of us decided to head back to campus to chill out and spend a weekend there. You feel at home, but it isn’t the same when someone else is living in your flat and when other people are calling your space theirs. To everything, there is a season. Ours was over last year.
• The only time that work is mentioned is when the shit hits the fan. So far, I’ve only had office parties and other random things that have made me even think of work outside of the office. Touchwood.
• My fourth trip to Mysore in as many months of living in Gurgaon at the end of August.

September 2010:

• Returned from Mysore, worked for a couple of days and then went ahead to Dharamsala. One of my most memorable trips. Peace and tranquility in the mornings, drinkage and debauchery in the evenings. Five brilliant days that made me feel sad about getting back to work in the hot Delhi plains.
• An email to the ISB alumni mailing list led to the formation of a rock band comprising of the former vocalist, former drummer and former bassist of the ISB class of 2010 rock band, with the new addition being a guitarist whose contact was provided to us by another alumnus. This was the first strongly demonstrated instance of the utility of the old-boy network.
• The full onslaught of monsoon was felt in Gurgaon as people traded in their second car for a kayak during the rainy season. Lots of traffic jams, delays, office shutdowns and a general infrastructure failure seemed to be an ominous precursor to the commonwealth games starting in October.
• Weekend quizzing at MDI Gurgaon commenced, with infrequent visits thanks to a mix of band practice, social commitments and utter laziness.
• The Ram Janmabhoomi – Babri masjid dispute results were announced as I was making my fifth visit to Mysore and the uneventful aftermath of the results were supplemented for by a very eventful evening on the IIMB campus with PGK and co.

October 2010:

• October began with a surprise visit to Mysore. My family got tired of surprise visits and told me not to show up for a while so that they’d be able to appreciate my absence at home. “ Next time you show up, let us know so that we don’t have to cancel our plans to entertain you at home, you idiot! “, or something to that effect.
• The time spent in Gurgaon seemed to be like breaks I was taking in between trips I was making all over the place. The weather improved in October in Delhi and it seemed like Bangalore in the winters.
• I learnt the hard way that Delhi has about two weeks of perfect weather. Otherwise, it is too hot, too cold, too windy, too rainy or too dusty and such. Extreme weather, as I observed, leads to extreme behaviour among people. No wonder the people down south that experience temperate climate seem to be more chilled out on average.
• My long-awaited trip to Israel finally saw something beyond the preliminary purchase of a Lonely Planet as I booked my flight tickets and had my accommodation booked in advance for my three weeks there.
• Went to a resort in Kumarakom, Kerala for a brilliant and highly memorable wedding ceremony. At the risk of waxing eloquent, a massive blogpost would just about begin to do the entire extravaganza some justice.

November 2010:

• Yet another trip to Mysore, this time around for Deepavali. My family became extremely suspicious of what I did in Gurgaon. “You work for a company that has an almost fictitious name, you do something that allows you to pay your loans and make enough time to come back home with irritating regularity. What is the deal? No, really, tell us!” Point taken.
• Wedding season began in earnest in North India. Engagements, marriages,  get-togethers all began in full swing the minute there was a noticeable thaw in temperature.
• My visa application, with all its documents was finally ready as I woke up real early one Friday morning in November to head to Nehru Place to finally submit it. After many years of waiting, I’d finally crossed the Rubicon.

December 2010:

• Another trip, this time around on work, to Mumbai. Flying is fun (for a short while) when you’re carrying a cool brief-case sort of thing and when you’re clad in a suit and there is someone at the arrivals section at the airport with a card which has your name on it. And so on.
• Attended the Jazz utsav (with an All Access Production tag) and saw performances by Larry Carlton, Talvin Singh and others from close quarters. Missed out on watching Meshuggah live thanks to travels.
• I got thrown out of the comfortable residence I was living at and in addition to tackling hectic work schedules, preparing for my Israel trip getting ready for Solstice 2010 (ISB’s annual alumni meet) where the class of 2010 band, Conjoint, was scheduled to perform, I also had to look for new accommodation. Talk about being mentally and physically taxed beyond words.
• A new residence in the second week of December and within three days of moving in, I was off to Hyderabad for Solstice. Meeting old friends was good fun, and performing on-stage yet again with the band reminded me of all the good times we were missing on campus.
• Returned from Hyderabad on the afternoon 19th December and spent 14 hours packing, shopping last minute and getting ready while trying not to fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion, only to do so on the Royal Jordanian flight to Amman. The twelve hours in transit in Jordan also gave me enough time to sleep like a baby.
• The last eleven days of a mixed up year that 2010 came out to be were spent in absolute delight, as a long-cherished dream of going to Israel finally came true.
• My longest solo trip for personal pleasure till date, this also resulted in many firsts, including Christmas eve in Bethlehem, Christmas doing the stations of the cross and an entire week spent in Jerusalem, to learn, to explore, to discover and eventually fall in love with the city, more for all its faults and its human side, rather than the eternal and mysterious part that drew me to it in the first place.
• Got two tattoos on two consecutive days. People that know me would know that it is quite out of character for me to do so, but both tattoos will remain relevant in my life until the end of it all. No regrets there. Plus getting it on the left hand can conceal it cleverly with an appropriately worn wrist-watch, so as not to draw attention to it as I go about unleashing corporate whoredom ad infinitum.
• Standing at the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem on the morning of the 31st, I was happy that what I’d said to myself last year (next year in Jerusalem) rang true, but was also sad that I’d have to wait until my next trip to come back to this city that I fell in love with.

2010 was a mixed year. But if it all went my way,  it might not have been as memorable as I’d have liked. As Dave Matthews sang,

“Then tell me what in the world would I go on for, if I had it all.“

Here’s to a smashing, absolutely insane, chaotic and unsettling 2011. The way I see it, 1/12th of it is has already been so.

I’d written a post at the start of last year to document personal milestones / accomplishments / fun things that took place in my life in 2009 and when I look back on it, I realize that the content in that post brings back memories of times that have been relegated to the back of my head, primarily due to other, more immediate things that seem to have taken up space instead.

However, it is nice to occasionally meander around in the recesses of one’s mind to dig up and unearth things that would otherwise be remembered only through memory triggers.

January 2010:

• Another new year’s eve in Mysore at home and as good a start to the year as any.
• Went to IIT Madras for the second time in as many years, this time to have an exclusive interview with Hammerfall. Hammerfall is a fun band whose sound I’d describe as entry level power metal and even though they didn’t hold a candle to Opeth in 2009, the time spent in IIT Madras was fun.
• On a side note, even though I still have the Hammerfall interview recording, the story never saw the light of day at RSJ. Just as well.
• On a lighter note, placements began in full earnest on the ISB campus. I volunteered as a control room coordinator and later on as the point of contact for a few companies including AT Kearney on day 1 and saw all the high GPA studs in my batch juggling between various consulting job offers. This was pressure at its extreme and as sour-grapish as it might sound, I was, in retrospect glad not to have been wearing a suit and making life-changing decisions regarding which job to take. My simple little brain that might’ve exploded in such a situation.

February 2010:

• The pranks on campus continued, as did the extreme debauchery. The class of 2010 hung on in quiet desperation at the prospect of securing employment and breaking away from the vicious circle of the placement rigmarole.
• I interviewed with a whole bunch of firms – I’ve honestly lost count. But the classic blooper moments I underwent still make me smile to this day. One of those was when I showed up half asleep at an interview and after one round, was made to interact with the CEO despite not having worked on a preliminary assignment that was required to be completed as part of their selection procedure. Chutzpah alone didn’t work and I didn’t get the job, though far more dedicated and deserving people did.
• The other interview that makes me facepalm myself was one where I was asked to draw the Porter’s 5 forces diagram on the board. I blanked, forgot and made a mess of the whole thing. The interviewer and I shared a good laugh about it at the end of it all. You remember more of what you missed than of the one shot that hit the target.
• I’d had too much mirinda just before another interview and let out a loud burp while in conversation. Turns out, the recruiters weren’t too sanguine about my prospects in their firm as a result of my orange tongue and teeth. The burp, I suppose, had nothing to do with it.
• Rock in India had Backstreet Boys and Richard Marx perform. The less said about this, the better.
• I finally signed out of the placement process when a business research firm based in Gurgaon (yes, based in and not based out of) decided to give me a job. I didn’t really have to jump through hoops to get the job, but I was convinced in my head back then that this was what I needed to act as a springboard for the next stage of my life.
• I was out of placements, but friends were still in the hunt. They celebrated with me and I tried my best to egg them on as they continued along in the process. Intense pressure and relief, turns out, have similar cathartic vents and the debauchery and the escapades that ensued continued unabated.

March 2010:

• The number of companies arriving on campus for placements thinned down until there was but a mere trickle.
• People gave up and decided to make the most of life and times on campus and March 2010 became one of the most fun months ever.
• The countless instances of hanging out with friends in different circles and indulging in everything except studying seemed to compensate more than amply for all the studying that was done in the initial part of the course (by the high achievers, of course).
• Unexpected visitors from Madras ushered in fond, if transient memories.
• The last full month on the ISB campus saw as much mayhem and chaos as did the previous eleven, so no changes there.

April 2010:

• The ISB rock band, Conjoint, performed its Swansong show for a full three hours in the last couple of days before graduation. We played so much that people gave up and went to sleep before it was done. Turns out, we took their chants of “once more” in our previous shows a little too much to heart. The rock band and all the friends I made that were part of it made B-school special in ways that I can’t describe.
• Got the torchbearer award – this added another cute bullet point to a resume that otherwise seemed average in comparison with those that my illustrious contemporaries sported. Humbling as B-school turned out to be, I learnt that we all have our place under the sun.
• Graduation happened three days before I turned 27. My folks were there. I could, for the first time, know for certain that they were proud of their kid, in just the same way as 570 other sets of families that showed up were for the achievements of their wards.
• My trusty backpack followed me to the graduation ceremony as well and the reason why it was with me is an interesting story in itself, to be told when I don’t have enough to write about, try as hard as I’d like to.
• Spent my birthday in my favourite place in the world at home in Mysore. Did nothing of note and thats what made it special.
• Returned to Hyderabad on the 10th of April for orientation week of the class of 2011. The most memorable thing, aside from the immense fun that it provided was making the entire class keep the faith.
• Left for Gurgaon on the 18th of April and that was when I realized how much South India rocks. I yearn to return, but I will do my time here before I earn my passage back down south.
• The April heat was negated by the fun times had in the first few days at work and the fun times had with the Prince of Gurgaon, Samridh.

May 2010:

• Two trips to Bangalore happened within a fortnight, the first was to attend Krithik’s wedding. The second one was a longer stint that ran through for an entire week and a half and began with the Simian wedding.
• Monkee was expected to get married earlier than most of us, but when it actually happened, one could hear the clock ticking as a countdown to the impending end of bachelorhood, were the stakeholders in my life keen on ending my solo reverie. Turns out, they hadn’t even thought about it. Phew.
• An air-conditioner and a TV (brought on EMI despite having liquidity) in Gurgaon turned out to be the blessing that reinforced my faith in modern technology. Not exactly spartan living, but not conspicuous consumption either.
• The heat made me pray for winters. The cold in the winter (briefly) made me pray for summer. When its hot, he wants it cold and when its cold, he wants it hot.
• Very little time was spent in the office thanks to a plethora of paid leaves taken and as will be seen in part 2 of this series, it came back to bit me hard in the gluteal region.

June 2010:

• And then there were four.
• Another trip to Mysore, the third one in two months was undertaken. The only bright spot in an otherwise bad month.
• More people from the ISB class of 2010 kept streaming in into Gurgaon, making this place better and more live-able.
• Blackberry messenger, as it turned out, was the de facto mode of staying in touch and this piece of software can take credit for some of the nice things that happened in June 2010.

To be continued…..

Wait.

Who am I kidding? There have been tons of dull moments that have been interspersed with few random occurrences or peaks that have more than amply compensated for the lull.

In between life-changing decisions made, including the need to consume only wine and beer and pulling out warm clothing for the impending North Indian winter that I have been looking forward to eagerly, there’s been a couple of things I’ve wanted to write about.

On 8th October, I had to attend Aisha‘s birthday party at the Indian Habitat Center and I was looking forward to it because the week was particularly hectic and I was hoping this would prove to be a welcome start to the weekend fun times.

The 2010 Commonwealth Games were on in full swing as I took the Delhi metro from Gurgaon to head towards Lodhi Road.

I had to get off the metro at the Jor Bagh station and make my way to the party. The sight that greeted me when I got to the surface from the metro station below was one that surprised me pleasantly. The central part of Delhi was always the most beautiful section of the city for me, with its wide, tarred roads and its lush green cover and palatial compounds. It really made you feel in awe the first few times you went there and took in the feeling that you were right at the heart of the capital.

However, it seemed as though Delhi had surpassed itself in an attempt to project a positive image during the games and the metro station entrances were brightly lit and the roads were well illuminated and despite there being very little traffic, the motorist stopped at the red lights in a display of uncustomary, albeit highly pleasant politeness. The entire area looked beautiful beyond words.

I was already late and reached the metro station at ten at night and was finding it hard to locate an auto-rickshaw. As I sat waiting at the bus stop outside the Jor Bagh metro station, I chanced upon two cops who were sitting there and having a discussion in Telugu.

While I can read the Telugu script because it is similar to the Kannada script, speaking the language was a different ball game altogether. I only know the Telegu phrases for “whats up?” and “I’m broke!” and a few other unparliamentary phrases I’d rather not put up, just in case people from home are reading this.

I went up to them and asked them for where the nearest auto stand was. The cops informed me that one would come along shortly and asked me to wait. As I sat there, I made conversation with them and within thirty seconds, it was evident that they knew little Hindi, no Kannada and lots of Telugu while I knew a little more Hindi, a lot more Kannada and absolutely no Telugu.

One of the cops, on finding out that I was from Mysore had the chutzpah to admonish me and say something to the effect of, “You’re from Mysore and you can’t speak Telugu? WTF!”

I told them that I had spent a year in Hyderabad and both of them mentioned their native town which was on the train route between Bangalore and Hyderabad, a route I had taken enough number of times to know of a few stations that were on the way. It was quite delightful to see their faces light up in recognition as I said ‘Guntur’, ‘Hindupur’, ‘Dharmavaram’ and ‘Anantpur’ and so on. This act seemed to bring me into their good books and they decided to take it upon themselves to hail me an auto-rickshaw.

One of the cops walked towards the road, brandishing his ancient gun on his shoulder and stopped auto-rickshaws that were passing by on the road. It was quite funny, considering how he wasn’t particularly bothered about whether the auto was already occupied or not. Some of the cleverer ones veered towards the right side of the road and sped away, while the rest of them that were stopped made an excuse and scooted off anyway.

My repeated attempts to thank him and ask him not to stop any occupied auto-rickshaws were met with a stern dismissal as he motioned for me to sit and wait at the bus-stop, while he continued stopping one hapless rickshaw driver after another.

Finally, some auto driver with no passenger showed up and amidst as much ceremony as could be mustered, the cop patted me on the back and away I went, grateful and quite pleasantly amused at the same time.

I wonder whether they’d have personally escorted me to the Habitat Center had I spoken Telugu. I’ll never know.

In Bangalore, my weekend planning was initially governed by when I would leave the city to head to Mysore. When things settled in and I began discovering, exploring and understanding Bangalore, and eventually falling in love with the place (for the most part), my plans revolved around spending time in the pursuit of various things within the city, as I slowly trudged up the Maslovian pyramid.

That glorious run of nearly five years came to an end in 2009 when I had to move to Hyderabad to study and weekends there were mostly spent working on assignments or studying or doing something or the other that entailed being on campus for the most part, as a result of which, there was no real need to make any weekend plans or follow through on them had they been made in the first place.

Cut to the NCR where I have been at for the past three months now, and I find myself in completely different circumstances. I don’t have the comfortable proximity to Mysore that I had previously found myself in when I was in Bangalore. Nor do I have enough work yet (if work at the office is discounted from the equation) like I did either in Bangalore or Hyderabad to keep me completely preoccupied.

In such situations, weekend planning becomes vital to one’s attempts at keeping the ennui monster at bay. When travel to places outside of the NCR isn’t conducive due to constraints that narrow down to lack of time or money or enthusiasm or a mix of two or more of the these factors, checking out the sights, sounds and tastes that Delhi has to offer then becomes part of the weekend menu.

As part of my sojourns, here’s snippets of experiences I’ve had that I find worth documenting.

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Back to regular programming.

Yomance: Yomance, a word I want to take credit for having invented, is new age short-term romance that a couple willingly gets into, knowing fully well that it will not / should not culminate in marriage. Its short term romance for the yo-generation. I am too old school for Yomance and I still feel like being head over heels in love with one person forever, the trials and tribulations that go with the search notwithstanding.

So the basic classification for relationships would have to be in the following order, just to give you a sense of where Yomances lie:

One night stand << Fling << Yomance << Long Term Relationship << Marriage

Delhi Airport Fundas: I like airports in general. I like train stations too. And airplanes and trains. I detest bus stands. That is beside the point.

The Delhi airport has had fond memories associated with it. On 23rd December 2009, I took a last minute flight from there to Hyderabad to attend my first job interview at B-school.

The flight cost me a bomb and I later realized that with a little more money, I could’ve made two (yes TWO) round trips to Singapore on Tiger Airways. Sadly Tiger Airways only operates from four South Indian airports and Chomland residents have no luck in this regard.

At the airport, I pleaded with all the airlines to give me a flight ticket to Hyderabad at the earliest possible and one ticket opened up on a Kingfisher flight at the last minute. I gave the ticket lady a big hug when she handed over my grossly expensive ticket and every time I end up at the departure lounge to head out of Delhi, I feel like dropping in and saying hi, except for that she’d have forgotten or felt that I was being creepy. Sometimes its nicer to let memories remain so.

Frantic phone calls to our placement department, to friends in Hyderabad and Delhi and elsewhere, shaving without soap / shaving cream / hot water at the airport after picking up a safety razor from some shady kirana store across the road and a random conversation with a guy who had Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea decals on his backpack (I told him he’d get beaten up in every major city in the UK) later, I was on the flight.

As I’d blogged before, I made it for the interview on time and did well, but the job went to a better candidate who rejected the offer, went onto win the Chairman’s award on campus for our batch and has since been elevated to levels of studness regular people like me can only dream of.

Weather Woes: I was in Bangalore, Mysore and Madras over the past fortnight, to attend two weddings and chill out in Mysore. The weather there is so beautiful and so pleasant that I am shocked at how I had taken what I had for granted. The complete absence of a miasma-like feeling that has stifled me up here in the NCR was extreme relief.

Mundu Madness: Wearing a is the best thing one can do in the sweltering heat of Madras. My friend’s wedding was being held during the time that the place was at its hottest and wearing boxers and a mundu with a belt tied strategically to avoid any potentially embarrassing incidents was the best decision. Ever. A certain Sangram Bhalla would no doubt strongly agree.

RSJ Fundaes: Its been more than three years since I’ve begun writing for RSJ and now, most saturdays when I am not traveling out of Delhi, which is most saturdays, I have time to get to the office here and sit and get some work done towards content for the magazine. The new initiatives for the year ahead as envisioned by RSJ are promising and will certainly do a lot for the music scene.

I had a few posts in mind, but they require a lot of time and a lot more contemplation for proper construction and presentation. In other news, I just read my last column post on RSJ only to realize that I’d made a mention of ‘Strategic Innovation Management’ in passing. I don’t remember writing this column because it was in between exams during my last few days on campus and I guess the content in the piece is a reflection of my state of mind then.

Having said that, most of what actually happened in my life last year is stranger than fiction and hence needs no more fraudness to be introduced for this post to sound weirder. If you’re cheesed off by the post already, here’s wishing you a grand 2010 and goodbye.

Before you go, please check out Aadisht’s stunning preview of 2010 which definitely warrants a read. His years in preview are now a regular feature of his bleg.

Moving on to 2009 in review for me in person. A lot of condensation has taken place thanks to the fact that minutiae needn’t be documented, in the interest of time and space and most of all, your attention span and sanity.

January:

• Went to IIT Madras and interviewed Opeth for the cover story for Rock Street Journal. Got promoted from Correspondent to Staff Writer, though I can’t really tell the difference. The latter title definitely sounds cooler. Never felt more powerful as part of the fourth estate till date, except for while shamelessly flashing press card before boarding domestic flights and getting the aisle seat all the time.
• Got two videos (video 1 and video 2) of me dancing along with Gaurav Basu and Abhinav Yogesh, vocalist and drummer respectively of the Bangalore based Inner Sanctum. It is to be noted that TASMAC shops disbursing alcohol in Tamil Nadu close at 10 PM, and our shenanigans were executed in complete sobriety due to the frustration of not having consumed alcohol, as opposed to being inebriated as it might seem in the video. Potential recruiters, please note that this showcases my light side which might come in handy as a future manager in your esteemed firm.

February:

• Admitted to the Indian School of Business’ class of 2010. Sheer joy at not having to work for a year. Eleven months down the line, I realize I’ve worked more in college than in fifty five months at the office. Go figure.

March:

• Last day at work on 20th March, and the anticlimax accompanying the end of my work at the only company that had me employed made me feel grateful that I could switch companies sans emotion. Being in the system long enough afforded a smooth exit, with all friendly faces helping out with the exit formalities. I still miss my close friends at work, and the fellowship (as we called our elitist clique of ‘cool’ people) shall reconvene again!
• Packed and moved back from Bangalore to Mysore, only to move out again in ten days. Had to bid goodbye to all the good friends I had made over five years in the city which I had just begun referring to as home, along with Mysore. Packing and moving sucks.
• Attended a wonderful surprise birthday party for someone. Surprise birthday parties shall never go out of fashion.

April:

• Turned 26. Was unemployed. Did nothing on my birthday except go out for an hour to meet an old college friend. One of my most uneventful and yet best birthdays till date.
• Finished loan formalities. For the first ever time in my life, I owed someone money that I wasn’t in a position to repay in the short term. I’ve still not come to this bridge that I foresee will be a long and arduous one to cross.
• Joined Indian School of Business’ class of 2010 to become a post-graduate student of management. Yeah, this is most of what my life currently revolves around till date, for better or worse.

May:

• Settled into college life, made friends, played pranks like this one and had a lot of fun. Got adjusted to parties, long hours of working / studying, spending atrocious amounts of time in front of my laptop, answering phone calls like I had to go take an urgent dump and other things that management grad students are usually supposed to do.
• Wore a suit for the second time in my life to get a picture clicked for the student handbook. The contortions involved in getting me to pose that way, as can be seen in my linkedin profile can’t ever be replicated, unless under conditions of threat to my life. The first time I wore a suit was for my B-school interview in December 2008.

June:

• The end of the world as I knew it and I felt fine. Correction. I’ll feel fine in due time, and write another cathartic post like this one and things will be brighter and sunnier again. Until then that far away look where one focuses away into infinity and reminisces about the past when one’s mind wanders shall remain.
• The rest of June 2009 remains a blur.

July:

• Getting used to the academic grind, with B-school keeping me busy enough to not even blog, try as hard as I wanted to. Oh, and I got to be President of the Music Club, which meant that anytime someone’s audio equipment malfunctioned, I was asked to come around and tinker with the wires to set it right, or to play top Bollywood hits music at parties where a DJ was unaffordable, or compile playlists for the most randomest of occasions. In all this confusion, a band was formed on campus (a rock band, no less!) and it was called Conjoint. Bwuahahahaha.

August:

• This was the month of theories when out of class creativity was at its peak, and a new genre of music was discovered, the Samson ratio was discovered and the Infinitely Prolonged Social Interaction theory was formulated. This theory, in some other time and some other place might’ve catapulted me to meteoric fame, but alas, all it got me was a blog post with a reasonable number of hits. I’ve made peace with that. I’m so easy to please.
• New nicknames were given to people, some of which will stick for life. Conjoint made its debut performance amidst as little fanfare as was possible.

September:

• Seems like I’d amassed enough street cred to be considered a judge for rock shows and hence was invited by Xtreme Sports Bar in Hyderabad over three weekends to judge Hyderabad bands doing their stuff. Got acquainted with the music scene in Hyd as a result.

October:

• Tried hitting on a girl at a bar when I was judging the final of the aforesaid set of rock shows. My extent of hitting on was to make hajjar eye contact and then not go up and make conversation. At this rate, I might as well hope and pray that females realize that striking conversation with men is part of the whole women’s lib thing that they’re so proud of displaying or that GSBs can convert easily to Buddhism, whichever comes later.
• Spent a wonderful week in Hampi / Anegundi working on an internship project to develop rural tourism and improve the small scale handicrafts industry in the region. Fell in love with the idea of watching sunsets while walking in paddy fields, listening to Sigur Ros.

November:

• Website told jai, MadMan Madhu Menon repaired it for me. God bless him.
• Fell into the standard issue honeytrap that most stupid people in an educational institute fall for, where someone’s charm is used to extract work from someone else. Guess which of the two parties I was!

December:

• Won a free phone at a quiz. The Nokia 5310 is my first phone with camera, mp3 ringtones, bluetooth, video and a wallpaper that moves!!!!!!!!
• Monkee got engaged, among other fun events that took place on December 13th. His phone bill has since quadrupled and his joy has increased asymptotically. Touchwood, good luck and God bless.
• Opened as part of Conjoint for The Raghu Dixit Project.
• Got shortlisted for a job interview, did crazy things including rush from Noida to the Delhi airport in peak traffic with no less than six near-death instances, beg and plead for a last minute flight ticket from New Delhi which cost a bomb, hugged the Kingfisher attendant who booked me the ticket and showed up in time for the interview. Many days and rounds later, I got a reject. Such is life. The effort made it memorable. Also, it doesn’t snow in Thailand. So there.
• The first of my cousins on my Mum’s side got married. She’s the second, age-wise. Guess which moron is the eldest? Yeah, scary. I know.
• Spent New Year’s eve half asleep while watching TV at home. The tame end to the year was as blissful and relaxing as it could get.

2009 will be relegated to the pages of personal history and has earmarked many changes in my life, good and bad. However, like each year that has passed in living memory, it will, without doubt be yet another year that has gone in shaping life as I know it. If you’ve read so far, Happy New Year once again!

*post fades away into the distance, with Green Day’s ‘Time of Your Life’ playing softly in the background*