Another trip.. another get together.. another blog!! From where the title has been flicked will be clearer in a bit.. the most relevant thing about it is that unlike other times when I’ve been to Hyd, there were no set plans made this time. We did things as and when we felt like it.. just about anything yaar!!
Anyways, to get to it.. I reached Hyd early morn and buzzed Sudeep and Thax.. who took their own sweet time getting to that “Paradise” place (Like lakdi ka pul usually, this time around, this drop-off point became the “we pass it every one hour place”... we kept going around it all the time!!) the bus had dropped me off. They came, I sat in the car after the hugs and we were off.
The first stop was Prasad’s where we wanted to get tickets for Woh Lamhe.. Goyal had said he wanted to watch it.. 2 reasons.. coz the review was good and coz he likes Kangana.. I suspect the ordering of those reasons was reversed though ;).. there weren’t any night shows, so we picked up tickets for 3:30 pm. We headed off to the airport after that for Goyal’s scheduled arrival but his plane decided to go around in circles for a bit. We didn’t wanna spend 120 bucks on the high-priced-as-usual airport parking and so we ended up in a bylane. The time here was spent mostly watching the tight security at a nearby ICICI bank building stopping anyone and everyone from entering. We also went for a small walk during which Sudeep commented, “gaon jaisi smell aa rahi hai”.. Thax interjected, “yeh gobar ki smell hai”.. we sheepishly smiled, us 3 nalaayak-city-waalas and turned about :)..
We had a discussion on whether we should leave this dude and push off.. all our points were in favour except for one vetoing factor.. he was getting sweets!! Thax tried calling Goyal (for the 17th time) and actually got through now. Goyal’s plane had just landed and we drove into the airport to pick him up. On reaching the terminal, we found that we were much faster than the slow, ambling, lazy-assed Goyal (I’ll be killed for this adjective-filled description!!).. we obviously still didn’t wanna park (things don’t change in 15 min!), we went about for a round again.. 5 min later, we returned and he still hadn’t gotten out of the terminal (see the description above).. but this we decided to stop in one of the outlanes (not the parking lot, mind you!).. after a search for Accenture/HSBC billboards and a stare from a passing police van, Goyal finally reached.
For obvious reasons, we were more interested in the dodha and the laddoos.. Goyal made some phone calls to meet some junta and Sudeep ended up fixing his plans for him. Can you please also add confused to the list of Goyal adjectives.. coz he really was at this point. Which is probably why we later found out that this particular phone call person (if you ever get to this blog, you’ll know who you are!!) was more interested in meeting the “shayad maine life mein thodi jaldi kar di” Sudeep ;). If I may add here, we’ve also found out that Sudeep is major eye-candy for all the babes in his CAT class in Hyd (oh wait, that’s an oxymoron.. there are no babes in Hyd.. the only good looking women are up on the billboards!!).. This was the first time any of us had flown IndiGo, so we wanted Goyal’s feedback on how the airline was.. “The air hostesses are quite pretty” (He’s a smart (ok ok, you can add that to the adjective list too) chap, comes to the point quickly ;)).. in particular, he liked one named Madonna.. he didn’t quite explain what he liked though.. the name.. or the name-tag!
Let me take a diversion here.. coz there are a few things to point out.. first of all, Ankit, you’ll be very sad to know that the revered Stanza billboard no longer exists.. in Sudeep’s words.. “dekhte sab the khareedta koi nahi tha”.. the second thing is that I haven’t even made it past a couple of hours of the trip yet.. this is gonna be one long blog.. and finally, one of the pleasures of writing a blog is that you get to trip everyone else without a chheeta on your own kurta ((Mu-wa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha (The evil laugh!)) Remind me to turn off commenting on this blog once done!!)
Also.. the roads in Hyd are really screwed up right now.. Though Thax says, “har saal aisa hota hai monsoon mein and har saal ban jaati hai”.. the Civil engineer in me rightreously asks, “Why don’t they fix it such that monsoon has no effect?!!”.. The Comps engineer smirks and asks, “Reeaaalllyyy??!!! Why don’t you help them with it??” That shuts the Civil engineer up and the Comps engineer goes back to wondering what he should do about the kickass salary some people seem to be getting in Hyd!!
Anyways, let’s get back.. we now drove over to (Sudeep and Thax)’s place (with a stopover at a place where the rest of us had juice without ice and Sudeep had ice without juice!).. Hi-hello with Varun happened.. and after about an hour of laccha, Goyal headed out to meet junta while we decided we’ll write CDs.. (every trip has it’s own music and it’s own songs!!) 2 audio CDs were compiled.. one Hindi and one English.. and then the time came for naming ceremony.. My “kya title daaloon” query was duly answered by Sudeep’s “anything yaar”.. and so we have it.. 2 CDs compiled on 30 September 2006.. called “Anything Yaar”.. as apt a title as there ever has been!!
We had plans to go out for lunch.. but we were too lazy to get up and bathe until it was too late.. so we ordered in Pizzas.. Thax was pretty sure we won’t be able to finish ‘em but we did. And then a quick plan was made to buy speakers for Sudeep’s comp (it also needs more songs dude!!).. we headed for this place called Computer Market, which is on Park Lane, behind MG Road (Quite a search happened for it.. as can perhaps be guessed by the detail with which I remember the location!!).. anyways, it was totally worth it.. coz Sudeep got himself this really SEXY Altec Lansing sound system.. totally cool.. and absolutely brilliant for blasting music :D
Quite the driving happened after that.. and we reached for movie just in time. Goyal wasn’t there yet (he came in about 20 min into the movie) and so we entered the hall without him. The movie is decent though all of us agreed the end spelled out too much. And we’d really have liked it to be more subtle.. By the end of it, we had quite a few names for lead actress.. Kangana Oh-The-Eyes, Kangana I-Don’t-Like-Pants, Kangana Weird-Accent and KPS Thakur (yeah right!!!!) are a few examples :))
The next one hour was spent blasting Kya Mujhe Pyaar Hai at full volume in the car.. all of us agree that Hindi movie music is moving up in this world.. and we ended up at Eat Street. We wanted to take a fast boat ride (the weather at this point was awesome.. very windy and chindi-chindi bearish once in a while) but things got screwed as they were only allowing 3 people per boat. So we went to this rooftop seating area and put lachha. The period here was marked in particular by flying menu sheets!! Thax warned us that the food is very crappy.. so we just ordered a paav-bhaji and a masala dosa to be shared between all of us.. and it ended up being awesome!! Which was very symbolic of Thax’s opinions the whole of this trip. Whenever he told us that the parking lot was on the left, it ended up being on the right. Even the law of averages fails when it comes to Thax!!
We had an are-we-or-are-we-not-hungry discussion after that and ended up at Ohri’s for chaat. The dahi-vadas and aaloo-tikkis we ordered were absolutely awesome and we had our stomach full. We also met Mehul in the meanwhile and convince Fundoo to come over with us to our place for the night. He carried his laptop along and we spent sometime watching his IIM pics and videos. As we were scrolling through the videos, the “Sutta” tune was heard. We were all obviously very curious to see if some dude actually sang it on stage. So we rewinded to figure it out.. Well, he did.. but all the X-rated stuff had been replaced with “na-na-na-na-na”.. :)
Least Count followed (with beer in hand for Goyal and me).. though we didn’t play much thanks to Sudeep’s “I was just taking risks”.. a show of Hyderabadi Nawabs movie followed and I fell asleep some 10 min into it. The big contribution as far as the movie is concerned, is the word “mastan” which has entered all of our vocabs.. the last 2 letters phonetically resemble “wahan” and not “mahan”.. Hindi becomes a phunny language when written in English :D
The next morning, I was woken up by a phone call from Ankit.. the most interesting part of the call occurred when he asked Thax whether he wanted anything from the US. The quick reply back was “Victoria’s Secret” =)).. I’ve no idea what he’d do with that but the rest of us just settled for catalogs!! We went off to Dundigal after that.. it was an eventful drive, with one truck almost killing us and us almost killing a truck driver :D.. but it was soon forgotten as Aunty served us a brilliant lunch.. we had lots of cake.. Schumi won an action packed race.. it was a very satisfying afternoon. Uncle took us on a round of the Airforce academy, we clicked pics of MIG 25s and SAMs and other whatnot.. very very cool!!!
As we headed out of Dundigal, we had no idea what to do next.. following the anything yaar philosophy, we decided to go for a show of Fast & Furious – III.. there was some time to kill before that, so we thought we’d pay a visit for the Birla temple. After major honking in the parking lot, we began our Birla centric expedition in the Science museum first. It was quite bad, especially when compared to the gem we have at Pilani :D.. the journey from the parking lot here to the museum was highlighted by the major honking as well (some shouting too this time!!).. and finally we ended up at the temple. Beautifully made, the temple was very neat.. and quick tour that we took was totally worth it!! To the movie now, and it was very crappy.. the drifting was cool initially but when we realized that the movie had nothing other than the drifting, it seemed stupid!!
Dinner happened post the movie at “Our Place”.. a joint treat Sudeep and Thax that Sudeep conned Thax into ;).. the ambience of excellent. We somehow ended up at a crappy corner table.. Goyal and I were still ok with it, but Sudeep and Thax weren’t.. I also have to mention here that Goyal definitely doesn’t deserve the wingman position.. my cry of 12 o’ clock was met by a “Huh? Whoa? What?!!”.. we did end up changing our table however.. the food was very good, especially the daal.. though the service was crazy and the waiters a little eccentric!! Though Sudeep said that they were better than most places, so I’m just wondering if Hyd has lower standards or something..
We hit a pub near our house post dinner.. dhik-chak music but the DJ was mixing well.. and there was a Sachin masterpiece on ESPN.. we just got in a pitcher of beer that Goyal and I piled on.. we spent about an hour and a half there.. and then headed home.. we never reached there as Oracle beckoned.. we went straight to the games room.. I was all for a BITS (Beer In The System) vs Non-BITS doubles match but Thax wasn’t in the mood for TT. So the other 3 of us alternated in singles matches.. I won both my matches (beat Sudeep more by fluke though) and both of us took sometime figuring out Goyal’s funky serve.. but in the end, Goyal was down a 0 – 2 score.. not that it mattered, Thax beat all of us at pool (I can hear lots of “yeah right”s!!!).. we headed out, took a drive around the tech city and reached home.. in the next 15 min, Thax and Sudeep had crashed.. Goyal and I dug into the couple of beer bottles we had left over from yesterday.. TV, lachha and beer.. at about 3, we both too slept off.
The next morning was a very lazy one.. characteristically us!! Sudeep’s b’day treat had to happen at lunch and venue had been pre-decided. Though we got lost on our way there, the usual parking-was-to-the-left-when-Thax-had-said-right happened.. but we finally did reach the place. The start was bad as they served the crappiest hot and sour soup I’ve ever had.. but the veg kabab was really good.. and everything after that was pretty nice too. They added some sort of rose flavour to the lassi but that too wasn’t like the now-famous Mirinda experience!!
We decided to spend the next few hours bowling. The first game was very keely contested.. the pendulum spun everywhich way.. and it came down to the final shot. Needing 8 of the last frame to overtake Sudeep, I scored a spare and won it :D.. as addictive as bowling is, we decided we wanted to play again. This time I was on fire (if I may say so myself ;)).. two strikes in the 2nd and 3rd frames gave me a comfortable lead.. Sudeep was particularly unlucky in this one, he bowled 3 gutter balls after all 3 of his spares.. I ended up with my all-time high score of 134.. this was a good sports weekend for me :D
(Thank you Wikipedia for all the bowling terminology!!)
We got Sudeep’s cake from Deli 9.. it was abso-f-ing-lutely rocking!! These guys have a cook who had made dinner.. had that while watching Mummy – 2 and India Blue vs India Red.. cake cutting happened.. some face-putai and the usual.. and it was time for me to leave.. these guys dropped me off and the journey to the bus pickup point was the only time that the “shotgun” call was vetoed by the driver (i.e. Sudeep). Goyal had called it and Sudeep said he didn’t want him up there. This followed a particularly interesting argument between them on a previous occasion where Goyal started doing too much sideseat driving and Sudeep got irritated.. Following Goyal’s gyaan speech, I wanted to quote Shakespeare and his “It is a good divine who follows his own instruction. I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow mine oen teaching” but decided to refrain. Sitting in the backseat, Thax and I exchanged grins and then Thax cheekily passed on the water bottle to them both :D
Anyways, the time to leave had arrived.. the Raj Travels bus was punctual.. and I was off.. stuff must have happened after, Sudeep/Goyal/Thax.. maybe one of you can add a comment to this post..
Till next time.. seeya!!
Monday, October 02, 2006
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Thax on the rocks!
The title has been lifted from rahul's mail. The mail with THE videos. Hehe...even the thought of it keeps me happy for the next several minutes. There's something very exhilarating about it, his state of oblivion, of absolute bliss, of obliging all of us by getting drunk and making it an evening to remember. Yes, i'm talking about the man in the title - Thakur alias Thax. We visited bangalore last weekend. The motto of this trip was to get Thax drunk. I don't clearly remember who started it, it must've been one of those one-liner mails. But that doesn't matter, the idea was dropped and everyone succumbed to it. We booked our tickets, packed our bags and come friday evening, we set out for bangalore.
After much discussion, i had booked my tickets by volvo. As it turned out this private volvo was a whole degree better than the APSRTC volvo that costs even more. We could push back and spread our legs on the footrest, they even served Njoi and Lays and played a movie. Njoi turned out to be less njoi'ble than the manufacturers would like u to believe and the movie was one of those that make you wonder if script came first or the movie. The movie was called Karam and if u ever watch it (god bless!), you'll know what i was talking about. But overall the journey was pleasant and we reached on time.
Bangalore temperature is a good ten degrees below hyderabad and a night's travel ionly adds to the slumber. The first thing we did in bangalore was hit the bed. We woke up by about 11am and set out for lunch at 3. It took us about 4hrs to get ready and even then ankit was left out. We headed to 'Chung Wah' for chinese. It was Saurabh's treat, which reminds me i don't remember what was he treating for! Man, if it was your bday treat, wish you belated happy birthday. Ankit reached Chung Wah an hour late, rahul had to eat an extra kilo of noodles coz the place was closing down and we had to keep the table till ankit got there. The waiters must've been thinking we didn't have money, coz we were getting cold stares, so we paid and made known that we were waiting for a friend. From there we headed to a Hyundai showroom coz rahul wanted to test drive the santro, he's even planning to buy one! While rahul went to test drive, I, thakur and saurabh went to Crosswords to kill time. There was so much eye candy that I began questioning god for his partiality towards blore over hyd. Later, I also tried my hands on the wheel, but if you're as used to a bike as i am, you'll be surprised. Covering the same distance in traffic can take thrice as much time and ten times as much patience as on a bike. The salesman sitting next to me was quite petrified and his right hand was perinially on the hand brake. Anyways, it was evening and it rains every evening in bangalore (even the rain god resides in bangalore, but i have my reasons to empathise with him. I would do the same if i was him, considering the eye candy!), so we headed to Yahoo office. We played TT, foosball and pool. Next we went to forum for dinner where God's partiality was confirmed beyond doubt. We watched F1 qualifying and decided Sunday evening would be spent watching Europian Grand Prix. Next we headed to Legends of Rock, the place had no sitting place and so we packed a bottle of vodka and rum and headed home for thax's legend of rock.
We started at about ten. Now i'm a teetotaler, but when ur best pals get together, its simply rude to abstain. So i took a small peg and held my glass high in cheers. Before i could down the first sip, loud burp filled the room. Thakur had guzzeled the whole glass and rahul was dutifully pouring him another. We were already one peg behind thakur and though he claimed to be on ground zero, we all knew cloud nine wasn't far. There was something vague playing on axn, some kinda body paint instead of clothes and we were all hooked to it when thakur had a sudden revelation. "Abey glass hil raha hai, isko chadh gayi hai". [cloud nine] He tried steadying the glass, but the fan wouldn't allow it. So he piled up papers all around it and intently observed the glass as if he could control it with his eyes. But still the glass wouldn't stop moving. So he picked it up in his hand, "Ah, now it won't move". But alas! "Mera haath bhi hil raha hai, haath ko chadh gayi hai, mujhe bhi chadh gayi hai". The best part of the whole affair was ankit's camera. We were getting the whole act on video and i couldn't stop thinking how much fun it'd be when thakur saw it in the morning. But that wasn't all, we still had the rum to go. They say rum and vodka can really get you high. So when thakur gulped two pegs of neat rum bottoms up, i found out just what they mean. He lost touch with reality. He put out his left hand, stood straight and before any of us could react dived into a cartwheel. He was now in the kitchen. Another few rolls there and i had to grab him so he won't hit his head on the wall. But he wouldn't stop, he kept rolling till the wind went out of his lungs. Then he went into spasms of vomit. And rahul did the maid's job while all of us recovered from the past one hour of amusement. In the middle of it, i tried comforting him:
Me: "Thakur, are you feeling ok?"
Him: "Haan yaar, par rahul ne mere paer(legs) kaat diye"
Me: (#$%^! touched his legs) nahi yaar hai...dekh now do u feel them?
Him: "Haan yaar sudeep, Thanks tune jod diye"
Even rahul got a dose of His romanticism:
T: Rahul get me some water
R(gets water in one of the pepsi glasses that we had daaru in): Here
T: Abey nahi yaar, daaru nahi pani, mereko bahut chadh gayi hai.
R: nahi yaar paani hi hai
T: nahi yaar merko bahut chadh chuki hai, aur daaru nahi.
But the best part of our trip was Sunday morning. Thakur was up early and he seemed in high spirits. So i asked him what was the last thing he remembered. He remembered going to the kitchen to have water. Alrite! Next coupla hours was the most i've laughed in my whole life. We played the videos over and over till the rolling act was burnt in our memories.
We saw bunty aur babli in the afternoon and saw F1 in the evening. Oh, we also showed the vid to mathur and he laughed non-stop for a good 20 min.
Evening at about 8, we headed back to hyderabad. There was some confusion and we got only one seat in the bus. The journey was back breaking, but we recovered the next day.
Soon rahul mailed a compressed format of the video and we started a discussion on whether it should be put on the internet or not. It would easily make the top 100 "Worlds most amazing video". The vote is on, so leave your vote here and we may decide through this referendum.
After much discussion, i had booked my tickets by volvo. As it turned out this private volvo was a whole degree better than the APSRTC volvo that costs even more. We could push back and spread our legs on the footrest, they even served Njoi and Lays and played a movie. Njoi turned out to be less njoi'ble than the manufacturers would like u to believe and the movie was one of those that make you wonder if script came first or the movie. The movie was called Karam and if u ever watch it (god bless!), you'll know what i was talking about. But overall the journey was pleasant and we reached on time.
Bangalore temperature is a good ten degrees below hyderabad and a night's travel ionly adds to the slumber. The first thing we did in bangalore was hit the bed. We woke up by about 11am and set out for lunch at 3. It took us about 4hrs to get ready and even then ankit was left out. We headed to 'Chung Wah' for chinese. It was Saurabh's treat, which reminds me i don't remember what was he treating for! Man, if it was your bday treat, wish you belated happy birthday. Ankit reached Chung Wah an hour late, rahul had to eat an extra kilo of noodles coz the place was closing down and we had to keep the table till ankit got there. The waiters must've been thinking we didn't have money, coz we were getting cold stares, so we paid and made known that we were waiting for a friend. From there we headed to a Hyundai showroom coz rahul wanted to test drive the santro, he's even planning to buy one! While rahul went to test drive, I, thakur and saurabh went to Crosswords to kill time. There was so much eye candy that I began questioning god for his partiality towards blore over hyd. Later, I also tried my hands on the wheel, but if you're as used to a bike as i am, you'll be surprised. Covering the same distance in traffic can take thrice as much time and ten times as much patience as on a bike. The salesman sitting next to me was quite petrified and his right hand was perinially on the hand brake. Anyways, it was evening and it rains every evening in bangalore (even the rain god resides in bangalore, but i have my reasons to empathise with him. I would do the same if i was him, considering the eye candy!), so we headed to Yahoo office. We played TT, foosball and pool. Next we went to forum for dinner where God's partiality was confirmed beyond doubt. We watched F1 qualifying and decided Sunday evening would be spent watching Europian Grand Prix. Next we headed to Legends of Rock, the place had no sitting place and so we packed a bottle of vodka and rum and headed home for thax's legend of rock.
We started at about ten. Now i'm a teetotaler, but when ur best pals get together, its simply rude to abstain. So i took a small peg and held my glass high in cheers. Before i could down the first sip, loud burp filled the room. Thakur had guzzeled the whole glass and rahul was dutifully pouring him another. We were already one peg behind thakur and though he claimed to be on ground zero, we all knew cloud nine wasn't far. There was something vague playing on axn, some kinda body paint instead of clothes and we were all hooked to it when thakur had a sudden revelation. "Abey glass hil raha hai, isko chadh gayi hai". [cloud nine] He tried steadying the glass, but the fan wouldn't allow it. So he piled up papers all around it and intently observed the glass as if he could control it with his eyes. But still the glass wouldn't stop moving. So he picked it up in his hand, "Ah, now it won't move". But alas! "Mera haath bhi hil raha hai, haath ko chadh gayi hai, mujhe bhi chadh gayi hai". The best part of the whole affair was ankit's camera. We were getting the whole act on video and i couldn't stop thinking how much fun it'd be when thakur saw it in the morning. But that wasn't all, we still had the rum to go. They say rum and vodka can really get you high. So when thakur gulped two pegs of neat rum bottoms up, i found out just what they mean. He lost touch with reality. He put out his left hand, stood straight and before any of us could react dived into a cartwheel. He was now in the kitchen. Another few rolls there and i had to grab him so he won't hit his head on the wall. But he wouldn't stop, he kept rolling till the wind went out of his lungs. Then he went into spasms of vomit. And rahul did the maid's job while all of us recovered from the past one hour of amusement. In the middle of it, i tried comforting him:
Me: "Thakur, are you feeling ok?"
Him: "Haan yaar, par rahul ne mere paer(legs) kaat diye"
Me: (#$%^! touched his legs) nahi yaar hai...dekh now do u feel them?
Him: "Haan yaar sudeep, Thanks tune jod diye"
Even rahul got a dose of His romanticism:
T: Rahul get me some water
R(gets water in one of the pepsi glasses that we had daaru in): Here
T: Abey nahi yaar, daaru nahi pani, mereko bahut chadh gayi hai.
R: nahi yaar paani hi hai
T: nahi yaar merko bahut chadh chuki hai, aur daaru nahi.
But the best part of our trip was Sunday morning. Thakur was up early and he seemed in high spirits. So i asked him what was the last thing he remembered. He remembered going to the kitchen to have water. Alrite! Next coupla hours was the most i've laughed in my whole life. We played the videos over and over till the rolling act was burnt in our memories.
We saw bunty aur babli in the afternoon and saw F1 in the evening. Oh, we also showed the vid to mathur and he laughed non-stop for a good 20 min.
Evening at about 8, we headed back to hyderabad. There was some confusion and we got only one seat in the bus. The journey was back breaking, but we recovered the next day.
Soon rahul mailed a compressed format of the video and we started a discussion on whether it should be put on the internet or not. It would easily make the top 100 "Worlds most amazing video". The vote is on, so leave your vote here and we may decide through this referendum.
Friday, May 20, 2005
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