Fine dining turning sour

I was in Palakkad last Saturday, spending the weekend with my sister, uncle, aunt and cousin bro. Terms like dining out, window shopping, ambulating through a mall, even mall are alien words in this town, which is still stuck sometime between the day we got independence and the next millennium. At least that is what I thought after having been a part of Palakkad for 25 years.

I got my first jolt when we decided to go out for dinner and was taken to the brand new mall in the city. It was quite big and I was surprised I should say. Further to the same, we went straight to the Food Court and found the place filled with diners. I was half expecting to see the place deserted as it was Palakkad, the place where I grew up and I swear I have not seen even a fine dining restaurant half filled.

So I was sitting with my family and enjoying the dinner, and we had about 3sear left in the table. A family walked into the diner, looked around for seats, and in a rather nonchalant manner ambulated towards us and sat on our table. I should say I was flabbergasted, having been used to the privacy while dining in Bangalore, and having been spoilt by the way I lived life, now I was in an unchartered territory.

I did not know whether I should tell the family that they were encroaching our dinner time without being rude or should I hide myself being the table. I finally decided that t would be best to act as if we were still alone, and be happy at the fact that people in my hometown are at-least open to dining out these days.

Rgds
Rahul

Eight year old answer

When I look back into time, the first vivid memory of her was that eight years back, sitting in the college gallery. It was first year of my college education and I was sitting with my gang of four, including me. I was fidgeting with something, which irritated my friends. It is no great mystery that what was in my hand, broke in two. "Rahul!!! I wonder what would happen if you got a girl in your hands.", she said. An offensive statement that I took in humorously. "You will have to check with my girl friend," was my riposte.

Eight years later, she has become the apt person who can reply to her own statement, made in the past. Interesting, how life can change over time. And how, you have to eat your own words, but of course in a good way :)

Bus Journey Strikes Back

This is another one of my banter about the bad bus journey that I had in the recent past.

After having attended my friend's wedding and then my sister in Cochin, I was all set to return to Bangalore by the 730 bus on Monday. By 430 it had started raining cats and dogs, and I had to make sure that I left home at least by 530 and reached the depot by 715. I settled myself comfortably and was expecting the bus to leave the station by 730, but that did not happen.

Some guy had not reached yet and his friend was pleading to the authority to wait a little longer. And the authority acceded to the pleads and waited for 15 min before starting slowly. Every two minutes the friends had a conversation and it was quite clear that he would not make it to the bus any time soon. Bus finally left little after 745 and was moving a snail pace. I wanted the bus to take off at the earliest as I knew the kind of traffic that we would face later on. Each time the conductor told the guy that we cant wait no more, the friend would tell them that he is almost right behind him and finally at 8 the guy caught up with us in Kaloor.

Kudos to the friend who made it happen, and boohoo to the guy who made us wait all this while. Anyways, do not want to abuse him in this forum.

Next comes my great seat mate. After having left cochin, and then dinner at Karrukutty, time had caught up with us and it read 9 in my watch. Not a bad pace at all if you ask me. But what I did not want to anticipate was the block up ahead. It tool us another hour to manouver through the next 10 kms, can you believe it?? Finally left Chalakkudy by around 10:30, by which time sleep was catching up on me, but I was definitely not in any sort of luck.

My seat mate started snoring, and boy was it loud, weird, funny and irritating. It went on and on for over two hours, disturbing my sleep and my patience and I finally woke him up. Told him that it was too much to take and that he should try and close his mouth to reduce the snoring. He found it funny, chuckled and as luck may have it, this time around he let me sleep in peace.

And so to say, I hated that trip back to Bangalore. I finally reached Bangalore at 8 as against 6, tired, sleepy and with loads of body ache. And I had to go to office that day.

But hey, better luck next time to me.

Catch 22

So am back to square one. It is official that I am now spiraling down a whirlpool. A week back I was better off, at least thought I was better off. With each passing day, the figures and targets that I am facing is becoming a nightmare of sorts. Each time I find a way out, some other obstacle comes in the way. It has been good three-four months since I was last happy with my numbers. That is about work life.

Now to more personal stuff. There are no damsels unlike my usual stories. I am happy about that, at least tell myself that. The work life balance that everyone raves about these days is something that I just can't contemplate. Think I have lost touch with myself.

The only thing that remains constant is Chandy and the numerous drinking sessions. We both face the same problems, be it the work life or personal life. We are in need for less options to choose from.

The other day I was browsing through my cell for people to call as I was into my blues. I came across the name of this person who is really close to me. But I did not call her. I speak to her every other day, did not feel like boring her again. So left it at that.

Went about browsing again, and guess what? The one person who I finally called, did not pick up my call. The call was never returned either. And to recall that I was once the most important person in her life brought about a smile on my face; at my own loss.

Then I saw another name. Now, I wanted to talk to that person. But the voice deep within told me that the call would never be answered. I feel like shouting out loud and asking, "Where did I go wrong in understanding them all?"

Take for example today, after another grueling day, from which I got nothing more than more setbacks, I thought I would try and see the silver lining. I looked up to see if there is some sort of recognition as to who I was. So what do I get??? A blank stare. Guess I should stop expecting even the smallest sliver of peace of mind.

Hence, it is ideal that I call myself in a catch 22 situation. No way of getting out of it easily. So as someone once said, rather than fighting the storm, try enjoying the rain.

Or better still, bring out the glasses and drink till you know that it would at least give you a good night's sleep.

TFTD 1

How can i reason with the world if it has already decided not to listen to me??

First days in Bangalore

The lighter moments in life during the early days in Bangalore!!!

• I stay at proximity of 5 km from the office. Unfortunately I have to hire a rickshaw every time I need to visit my office, which is everyday, and so to save the money I walk about half the distance and then hire the rick. It so happened that one day I walked 5km only to find that I took the wrong turn at the right junction, only to end up with “Auto!!!Auto!!!”
• Being new to Bangalore, I decided to walk around to get to know the places better. After walking for over 5km, I decided that I have understood the roads. The next day, to test myself, I took the rick and gave the driver the location. I was waiting eagerly to see the roads that I had formed in my head. “Ended up finding more ways then I could fathom, and realised that my roads were all one ways and took me no were. Ooooops!!!”
• New place=New language. Though I am not equipped with kannada, I am quite happy speaking Tamil and Hindi, which is widely accepted in Bangalore. So after my not so successful mission of understanding the roads, I decided to take a break and drink juice. At the nearest juice counter I ordered for Lime juice, and after waiting a long time, ended up drinking GRAPE Juice. I wonder how I got that mixed up.
• Another walk, another story. This time it is Brigade Road. Rajesh and I, walking with no job at hand. He was supposed to join his company that day, and I the next. After having walked about 6-7 km, I decided to drink lemon soda. Cuz of the previous experience, I avoided the juice counters and went to a ‘Petty Kada’. No much confusion, asked for lemon soda, got lemon soda, asked for the price “Twang!!!” It was 20 bucks. My pathetic look at Rajesh earned me a discount of Rs 5. Way to go!!!

A stroll in the night

Time: 11:20
Place: Calicut, KSRTC bus stand.

I was supposed to pick up mema(my aunt), from the KSRTC bus stand today. Even though I am from Calicut, I have never really ventured into the dark secrets of this place in my past 14 odd years at this place. I cant boast of a solid night life at this place, this being my reason for not hanging out much into the night. But today I did realise that there is a life after midnight at this place. A life, which the society would term anti social, a life of prostitution.

I have never really met or in fact seen a hooker work, I have not had any contact with hookers so far in my life. I am proud of that fact.

I recently had vouched to reduce the number of cigarettes I inhale, and i believe I was doing a damn fine job at it. But today though, I had to wait for my aunt for a while before her bus arrived. I considered the wait as the right opportunity for me to get one of those deadly rolls, just to pass of some time. I was blowing out the smoke, when I noticed a lady in Salwar stroll by ever so nonchalantly. This definitely quipped my curiosity. You do not find lonely ladies walk by at this hour, with a look of owning everything around. She came stood by me, and couple of gazes in her direction confirmed my suspicion that she was one of those night creatures, whose day began when ours ended. I really was not interested in what was about to begin, and quickly put out my ever so precious cigarette and walked over to the other side of the road. I clearly did not want to miss what was about to happen you see. How the seductress became the seduced?

I cant believe the number of guys who struck up conversation with her, it clearly was pure business talk I believe. Suddenly I heard a female voice disturbing the calmness of the night, with abuses that I myself find hard to use in broad day light. Clearly, they could not finalise on the going rate. I was standing with a bunch of rickshaw guys, and they were trying to shoo the disturbance away. It was clear that they did not want such unsolicited behaviour in their backyard. I then left my look out point to enquire the bus timing, but in vain. Thus deciding to witness some more of the commotion outside. I left my look out point and found a place right opposite to our unwanted guests. By this time, she had made few more male friends and the intimacy had reached such levels in the span of 5 minutes that she was sharing cigarettes with the prospective partner. Unfortunately the deal did not go through, for she pushed everyone aside.

It is at this point that she started moving from her perch, and where to? Towards me. That was certainly the last thing I wanted on this day. Having a conversation with a hooker. Even though I am very strict about my policy of "No sex for money", i would not mind talking or even flirting with a real hot babe, whom society might not approve off. But the thing coming in my direction was way below abysmal. I clearly got the hint that the time has come for me to bail off. Off I went in the direction of the bus stand, and thankfully the bus arrived at about the same time. I greeted mema and carried her luggage to our car. On our way back, I turned around to see if our friendly neighbour was around. Luckily, she was nowhere to be seem.