Thursday, February 17, 2005

To tea or not to tea...

This post is dedicated to Saurabh/Sade/Pondy... whichever name you use to call him... and his obsession with tea...

I'm sitting here on my desk and drinking what he calls "dip-tea"... (I really don't know the lingo but I'm fast learning!)... it was more of a mistake, a cramp in the finger (or was it fate??) that made me press the wrong button on the coffee machine... and sitting here sipping this brownish liquid, I really can't imagine what the fascination is all about.

It's not that I haven't drunk tea before... in India, every household expects you to have tea even if it's 45 degree outside. You sit at a place for 5 minutes and a cup is thrust in your hand... and of course, rather than go into answering the quizzical, "You don't drink tea??", it's better to just start sipping.

"Is the sugar ok?"

Hell, I don't know!! And anyways, since I'm sure no amount of sugar would make it taste like orange juice (with ice!!), who cares??!

I've had the discussion with Saurabh many times... and till now, I haven't got an explanation from him... what is it that makes tea irresistable?? For him it's a question that doesn't require an answer... it just is that way...

"Kya Misra, tum chai nahi peete?" is something I often get stuck up with... the dude has even suggested that I should have drunk tea in the change-over breaks during my tennis match... that's the way to win, he implied...

My reply was a "Yeah right!" till yesterday morning... when I woke up to Sania Mirza's first ad on TV... yup, at 8 in the morning I saw Sania drink Tata tea and go on to win the match...

"I told you Misra, I told you!"

And so here I am, with a cup of "dip-tea" in hand... wondering whether I should fill this concoction in a bottle when I head to my next match (God knows when that's gonna be!)...

Well, maybe if they can get Federer to endorse it...!!

Monday, February 14, 2005

There and back again...

Someone just asked me whether I blogged... I don't know whether I'll come back and post here again... but for now, I can at least put this up... it's a mail I wrote on the 7th of Feb... Hyd visit... in short...

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Hello people... Well, back from Hyd... And for the first hour, didn't feel like digging into code at all... And since then it's been back to square one... So much that I've only gotten around to typing in this mail now... At 30 past six in the evening...

Hyd is a nice city... But to tell you the truth, the place fell quite short of expectations... I'd heard so much of Hyd aisa hai, Hyd vaisa hai ki I had expected God-knows-what... It didn't measure much... But then anyways, who went there for the city...

To say I had a ball of a time would be an understatement... Reached there real early morn in a very comfy bus (Thax, the Volvo on the way back had too little leg room, when the guy in front of my stretched back, my poor knees had a terrible time!!), had a quiet aloo-ke-parathe breakfast... And then headed for Black... Which is an awesome movie... Totally...

Then lunch at Angeethi's... The buffet was exactly similar to what we get in the Bang version of the restaurant... And just as good... And of course, Thax was majorly surrounded by girls... We have pics to prove it!

Headed to Charminar and Golconda Fort the next... The Charminar area was pretty much like Chandni Chowk, and I guess the kinda place you can enjoy once in a while... Of course, the fact that we reached the gate a minute after 5:30 pm (the closing time) took the cake! Golconda Fort was major Khetri types, especially since we were there at night...(we have our driver to thank for that, who left the car open and walked off because he was worried about our securtiy!)... And we took a few Khetri type snaps as well... There was a sound-and-light show there that we walked out off... Coz it was boring... And coz it was much better sitting amongst the ruins, a cool breeze blowing...

Ankit headed off with Anu after that... And the rest of us went to this NTR park... Which was good fun, the two rides at least... Then Prasad's, a mall-cum-multiplex kinda place... Major Foozball happened... Though we ended up lifting the table more and playing less... And a stupid scary house trip that didn't even scare Divz!! Dinner happened here only... Thax had this amazing dessert (name I've forgotten as usual!) and we all piled on keeping up true BITSian standards!

Headed to Eat Street after that and met up with K... I think out of all of Hyd, this was the only place I really liked, with a brilliant view of the lake... Especially as it got late in the night, and fewer people were around...

There was supposed to be a Divz-violin session after this... But everyone was too tired... Crash happened though Thax and I were up till 3 putting lachha...

The next day started late... And the first thing was Divz on the violin... Man, she's awesome! After that, I headed off to meet Murari and Shubz (DoT seniors) for lunch while these guys had lunch at some place called Tablas... Which I hear was pretty cool...

Then was Oracle time... It's quite a neat place... Major dissection of the elevator algo happened on the way to Sudeep's floor(!)... Sudeep's got a real cool desktop... And some amazing videos in there... And we played hajaar TT... Good fun! Then of course, off to Infy... Which as usual was out of the city... And which as usual seemed like a freaking 7 star hotel... I mean, sometimes I really think they should go for a 3 star hotel and share some of the money with they fresher engineers... Like Sudeep said, "All to impress clients"... Well, if I was an Infy client, I'd be impressed! But to tell you the truth, I feel slightly betrayed when I think that they could so easily be lessening this show a little and paying their engineers more...

Headed back home, it was almost leaving time... Went over to a Pizza Hut nearby and K joined us there... Sat for about 40 minutes for a very chhut order that never came... (we ended up getting the stuff packed)... The delay resulted in a slightly frantic where-the-hell-is-the-bus search... But well, the bus was also late, which meant that we were early... So, stood around... Talked... And like I said to Thax, "kal mail par milte hain"... The bus came soon after, we boarded it... And then it stood there for 10 minutes... The tinted windows were useless... So we made full use of technology, and had a very innovative goodbye session via sms...

And then... We left...

Favourite part... Lying with Thax on the mattress and talking about anything and everything... Out of all the things that the all of us have done together, I think I miss just sitting together and talking the most...

Ab now you guys, come to Bang jaldi se...

Love and hugs
Rahul