Dilli Meri Jaan

Each time I visit Delhi, it never fails to wow me. It is always a different facet which rears its head and somehow manages to amuse me in an inexplicable fashion. And almost always, I can give no reason why I have come to like this city. Is it the ever crowded markets and malls? Or is it the alarmingly quiet VIP roads? Perhaps it is none of this or maybe it is everything.

This time I chanced to stopover in Delhi for 6 hours. My flight for Ahmedabad was due to take off at 6 in the evening. I touched down (flying from Lucknow) at 12 in the afternoon. Shaktimaan played host to the holy trinity of Chiku, Chepu, and Red. Great host, I must confess. No matter how much she might gloat over this.

Anyways, we had lunch at Shaktimaan's place, got to visit Humayun's tomb (the highlight of the small stay) and also had the good fortune to listen to some hard core Delhites bitching about their ex-boyfriends. All in all, a very satisfying 6 hour stay for me. We left Delhi somewhere around 7. I could not help but wonder when I would get to visit this irritatingly incomprehensible city again.

What Are You Doing Today?

Disclaimer: The title has been plagiarized from the Microsoft tagline - "Where are you going today?". Don't freak out if you are a Windows fanatic. Instead, appreciate the creativity that MS inspires.

OK. On we go. In order to make up for not calling me up (or not wishing me through that bane called Orkut) on my birthday, many people have been asking the dreaded question. It goes something like this - "So what did you do on your birthday?". A seemingly innocent looking smiley usually follows this mental torture.

True to the spirit of engineering (read being as lazy as humanly possible), I have decided to answer all of them in one go. So here's the itinerary for my Big Day, or whatever lame-ass name you prefer to give it. I hope that after putting it up here, I'll be spared the trouble of answering THE question, all over again.

18th July, 2007

2345 - 0000 Readying my ass for the kicking session people have come to call celebrating one's birthday.

19th July, 2007

0000 - 0015 Got kicked, sans any pity. Gruesome looking villains taking out all their pent-up frustration on me. It was bad. Let's not go into the details please.

0015 - 0045 The same old gruesome looking monsters contemplate whether or not they should throw me in the pool. I am swung around like sack of potatoes a few times. Finally, the dumb orangutans decide they've had enough. I am left wearing nothing but a bermuda and thrown into the pool, sans any grace or dignity. Humph.

0045 - 0100 I go to our room and put on a fresh pair of bermudas. Out I come. Have a glass of Slice. The monsters are already planning to do the Pepsi thingy. I am terrified. "This is the last pair of bermudas", I tell them. But, they refuse to relent. I run for my bermuda.

0100 - 0200 Aish and I get a bottle of beer each. We made the resort owner open the bar at 1 in the night. Nice old fella he was. Was smirking when he handed the bottles.

The beer bottles are empty in an hour's time. Champ, Chiku, and Bhaggu had joined the two of us. They drink (and spill over) Pepsi. We Kingfisher. Didi calls up at the end of the hour. Asks immediately if I have been drinking. I nod sheepishly. She is not surprised. All's well that ends well.

0200 - 0300 I spend (or more precisely waste) my time, reading birthday wishes on Orkut. I reply to some of them. It's time to sleep. I go to bed, feeling strangely content.

0300 - 0930 ZzZzZzZzZzZ

0930 - 1030 Number 1, Brushing, Number 2, Number 3 (Bathing rey)

1030 - 1100 Breakfast. Listen to Raka kicking Aish's ass for almost no rhyme or reason.

1100 - 1130 Raka gone. Champ, Aish, and I prepare to leave Mysore.

1130 - 1430 Travel from Mysore to B'lore, enjoying the scenery.

1430 - 1500 Champ and I have lunch at the Pizza Hut near the airport. Aish is conspicuous by his absence. He has gone to meet up with someone. Ahem.

1500 - 1730 Wait for Ganna, Chiku and Bhaggu at B'lore airport. Finally they arrive, in all their regal glory and grandeur.

1730 - 2100 Fly over half the length of the nation. Kingfisher again. Lovely service. Ahem.

2100 - 2230 Reach some remote spooky location in West Patel Nagar. Everyone goes out for dinner to YO! China. Good Food. Even Matt is impressed. "Then it must be good", I say to myself.

2230 - 2330 Team settles down in its new surroundings. Printer is set up. Cell phones are plugged in. It's time when they usually start ringing (for obvious reasons).

2330 - 2345 Somebody suddenly realizes a lovely looking cake had been ordered from before hand. Hurriedly, candles are fished out. But unfortunately, there are no matches and no Chaurasiya Paan Waala can be found at this hour. So I pretend to blow out the candles. The guys don't pretend to sing. They actually do. Much to the dismay of people residing above and below us.

Eat Cake. I say. You too. They say. I am filled with cake by the time they are done with me. I am almost swallowing it, using a bottle of cold water. Finally everything is resting at the bottom of my exceptionally small tummy.

2345 - 0000 Remove (or try removing) any vestiges of cake still left clinging to my clothes.

That's about it. That's how my the day ended, with me by the basin. Do you still have any questions? Please tell me you don't.

Subterranean Homesick Alien

There weren't enough comments from the damned hudugas and hudugis on the previous post. So, I decided to put up something more for their useless praise and appraisal. After all, since they are damned already, you can't expect much from them. Whatever!

The post comes just a day before my budday. All you thaluas out there - make sure to wish me and bring sweets for me (whenever I see your irritating face). My esteemed presence can not be profaned without some incentives to do so. Gifts and sweets are the prefect excuses. And haan, an iPod would be just fine.

Life in Mysore is okay. We got a lot of work to do. But somehow the weather, the kids and the incentives (read pending salary) make it all worthwhile. I am kinda going to miss this city. It has got loads of trees, some good roads, and some even jazzier tourist attractions. Thinking of tourist spots, I must mention my visit (second one in fact) to the Mysore Palace (the day before). We were accompanying Don Williams and Susan Dray (a couple of visitors from Microsoft). Saw the I-follow-you paintings and the oh-how-so-romantic Peacock Hall all over again. I can now almost become a half-baked guide for bummers like myself. Saw the lighting and all as well.

We visited the Visvesvaraya Dam today (the Brindavan Garden locale). It was all very good. The visitors will be going back tomorrow. So we can afford to relax after 3 hectic days.

Damn, this post is getting too crappy. I can almost feel the crassness of the style. So that's it. Good Bye. See you around.

Aunty, Dave, Me - Chamundi Biking Spree

Don't Dream It's Over

A wise guy once said - "Don't write crap when you can write better". Being the fool I am, I have chosen to chuck those words of wisdom down the garbage chute and come up with some trash so as to earn some well deserved curses, slangs, and abuses. I just couldn't help it fellas. I know I have to write something when instead of dozing off, I think of getting hold of pen and paper and coming up with some fancy introduction to an even jazzier post. Not that I usually end up doing that. Sleep is too expensive a commodity to be trifled with over such whims.

Coming back to more familiar grounds. As some of you might be knowing, I am currently interning in Mysore under the aegis of University of California, Berkeley. My work involves serving as a researcher in a project named MILLEE (Mobile and Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economies). The project seeks to promote English Language Literacy in developing regions through mobile technology (read games, applications etc etc that can be deployed on mobile platforms like cellphones). As a part of the MILLEE team, I have had the fortune of being mentored by an extraordinary doctoral student, Matthew Kam, whose brainchild is known to us all as MILLEE.

MILLEE, a name with which 8 guys have become synonymous with over the past 4 weeks. A name that seeks to bring a change. A name that changes the people it touches. Okay, as usual, maybe I went overboard. But the fact of the matter is, MILLEE seeks to cater to the impoverished section of our society. And that is reason enough that it should get all the support we can muster. It is always a good feeling to be helping out the needy. I can vouch for that from experience of working with village kids for two consecutive summers now.

But working our asses off (if only sometimes) doesn't mean MILLEE is all about work and no play. Neither am I. So when on one hand we spend entire nights deploying the apps on 20 highly irritating Motorola Razr cellies, we also go biking on Wednesdays up the Chamundi Hills (OK well maybe not all Wednesdays). Then there are the unrelenting sessions of leg-pulling, jokes, and Davidisms that keep all of us on our toes. All sane mortals here very wisely choose to ignore the steady stream of PJs coming from a direction named Anuj 'The Graduate' Tewari. Not included in this category is Anuzz 'Chiku' Kumar, who manages to fall over himself on hearing the silliest of jokes.

Recently, that is last Sunday, the entire team went around Mysore, visiting the regal Mysore Place, followed by a session of some kick-ass amateur bowling. All of us were bowling for the first time and I almost managed to kill a guy by hurling the bowl thingie as high as it would go. Anuj (Tewari that is) managed to steal the show by snatching victory from Jacek aka Kebab through the very last throw. I very conveniently finished last, just behind Chepu Champ, Mathurz. Aish 'Hadd' Aunty somehow managed to perform spectacularly even though he was bowling and cell-phoning at the same time. I tried to goad him into telling me the secret of his multitasking capabilities. But he has, so far, refrained from letting out any secrets.

That is the story till now (only the rosy parts of course). Let's see how things develop. As and when they do, I'll make sure to keep you buggers posted. As of now, the coding team has to get cracking on its next assignment - the second set of prototypes that need to be demoed to some MicroSoft guy named Don Williams. Till next time, all you hudugas and hudugis keep commenting on the damn posts.

P.S: Oh Yeah! I almost forgot. We had Akshaye Kumar (yeah the dude in the damn Khiladi movies) shooting right in front of our farmhouse. He was there shooting for some crappy Priyadarshan movie called Bhool Bhullaiya.

Talk

And the hardest part
Was letting go, not taking part
Was the hardest part

And the strangest thing
Was waiting for that bell to ring
It was the strangest start

And I tried to sing
But I couldn’t think of anything
And that was the hardest part

Everything I know is wrong
Everything I do, it's just comes undone
And everything is torn apart

- The Hardest Part, Coldplay

It's not that I am feeling particularly melancholic or anything. It's just that I wanted to write about something, anything, and what better way to start off then Coldplay. Okay. Agreed. Not all of you have heard of them. But music's something that doesn't need acceptance from others. If you really feel the beats of Hip-Hop, the sugary voice of Spice Girls, the death notes of Heavy Metal, or the falsetto of Chris Martin, then it is as good as any other kind of music the purists might propagandize. So let the music play. Let the others go and funk themselves.

Moving over to lesser abstract subjects. The Mysore Mein Mangal thingie. Oh yeah fellas. It feels good to be working again. Especially when you get a chance like this. Lovely environ. No sweaty bus rides to the school we visit almost every weekday. Instead, we work (or more precisely code) from a 5 acre farmhouse that has all the necessary amenities to keep us smiling contently. Then there is the excitement of actually seeing your khoon-paseene ka kaam being tested in the field. Kids going gung-ho over silly games that you have designed for them. Matt coming up with ever more beta-test defects in your applications. The 4 programmers + Content Developer + Logistician taking it all in their spirit. Yeah, it's good to be working again. And I am not exaggerating.

The best part of the day is when all of us, dead-brain-tired from the day's work, indulge in the ancient art of bakar. Oh dear, there's no better past time than that. And then the shameless Sophomore assumes the role of the court jester, the gossip monger and the g33ky programmer - all rolled into one. Crazy-Ass fundas and concepts roll out of the Factory one by one. Then comes the rolling part. Uhmm...it's people literally rolling on the floor and laughing.

Anyways, it's time to work. Again. But this time, I won't talk.

Munh Ki Baat

Munh ki baat sune har koi, dil ke dard ko jaane kaun
Awaazon ke bazaaron mein, khamoshi pehchaane kaun

Sadiyon sadiyon wahi tamasha, rasta rasta lambi khoj
Lekin jab hum mil jaate hain, kho jaata hai jaane kaun

Woh mera aaina hai ya main us ki parchhaai hu
Mere hi ghar mein rehta hai, mujh jaisa hi jaane kaun

Kiran kiran alsaata suraj, palak palak khulti neendein
Dheeme dheeme bikhar raha hai, zarra zarra jaane kaun

- Munh Ki Baat