Never in my wildest dreams, did I ever imagine, my first visit to Chennai, would become so idiotic!
Chennai, formerly known as Madras, is one of the biggest cities in South India. It was in the early years of my professional life, when it so happened that I had to attend an interview for an enterprise, which had then newly opened a branch there. I was already employed, but never wanted to miss the opportunity to have a peek at the challenging work profile of the company. And thus started off for Chennai.
It was my first visit to this city and being alone, was a bit nervous. I landed early morning and was surrounded by auto rickshaw drivers even before I stepped down from the bus. This is a common scene, when you land in a big city. Knowing, these fellows will charge triple or quad of the actual fare of the journey, I bypassed them to catch an independent auto, whose driver looked somewhat decent. I told him to take me to a good moderate lodge, for which he took out a booklet containing the pictures and prices of almost all hotels in that region of Chennai. I selected a moderate motel and we commenced. It was hotel RK …
By 7 AM I reached the motel. The auto driver was fair and charged only “double” the actual fare for the journey. I took a room there, had a nice bath and later rang up the mobile of a distant friend of mine, over the phone provided in my room and made a good estimate of the location of the company. Later had a mild breakfast from the hotel, took my certificates and started off for my interview. My plan was to finish-off the interview by noon, return to the hotel and then roam in the city side with my camera… but…
My interview went well and the job was certain. I was very happy. Now, the next thing to do was to vacate the hotel and roam around the city. I decided to return to the hotel. Unfortunately... I just realized that I didn’t have the address or phone number of the hotel !!! In my hurry, I had missed to take a business card from the reception when I went for the interview. The worst blunder a person could do in an unknown city. I did not know what to do next. I tried to remember the name of the hotel from my early morning itinerary. I just remembered that the hotel’s name was some “Arcade” or something!!!
I jumpstarted to an auto and ordered him to take me to hotel “Arcade”. Arcade?? The driver reverted in amazement, saying he never heard of such a hotel in that part of city. “But don’t worry sir, we can find that out”. He commiserated me. We roamed the whole Chennai, asking different auto drivers about hotel Arcade, none of whom had ever heard such a name. Then we met one driver, who said, “is it hotel RK? If so, then it is close-by!”. I disagreed in a stentorian tone, “Nope! Its hotel A R C A D E”, recollecting the picture of the hotel from my early morning sleep. Later we met many other auto drivers, and they also said the same. The auto rickshaw meter was running high and I decided to change the strategy of my search. I boarded down the rickshaw and had to spend one half of the money I had in my pocket.
The next idea was to make help of the help-line. This is a wonderful facility to help people landing in unknown places. Every city has a seven digit help telephone number, like “3333333” was for Bangalore. But I did not know the helpline of Chennai. Thus I called up my Bangalore help line and asked them the help line of Chennai. Later called up the help line of Chennai and asked them to tell me all the hotels and their addresses in and around the company I had the interview at. “Sir, we are pleased to help you, but what you have asked for is just impossible”, came a soft female voice from the other end. There were around 112 hotels in that area. But I was not ready to leave her. “Could you please tell me at least the top ten hotels in that area whose names start with the letter A?” I retorted, like it was some SQL query. She replied, “Sir, there are 23 hotels starting with A” and started reading the hotels one by one. I listened carefully when something like hotel Arcade will be called… but alas… Finally she got pissed off and I had to disconnect after her humble request.
I thought again and formulated my next strategy. It was over 3 PM then and my return bus was scheduled to be at 5 PM. I quickly decided to simulate my early morning journey and thus boarded for the place where I had landed on that worst morning. That place was very crowded with all the auto rickshaws running around, creating turmoil. I asked a few auto drivers about whether they knew a hotel by name Arcade. Later I asked a few auto drivers if they had a booklet of good moderate hotels, in which I could stay for a day. I was almost certain that I must come across this hotel in that booklet. But unfortunately, whoever I asked did not have a booklet and I was totally depressed. Being a Capricorn, how can I give up! At last after a long hunt, I finally got one with a booklet. I requested him to lend me that booklet for a second for reference, but he differed. He said if I wanted to take an accommodation, then he could give me that booklet, otherwise “get lost”! On the worst day, you might have to face the worst hospitality too... But I had no other choice and thus boarded the auto. I went through the booklet eyeing eagerly for hotel Arcade…
Never in my wildest dreams, had I ever imagined, I could do such a big mistake, which could land me solitary in a big crowd. There was no other choice left and thus I decided to do some randomized search. The idea was to randomly go to some hotel and ask them if they knew any hotels by that name. They should definitely be able to help me…
Soon my brain started organizing the things that happened since morning and immediately a small idea came to the foreground. I had made a phone call from the hotel to my friend’s mobile that morning…And that was it…
Finally, I landed in the correct hotel, and just looked at the name board. The name R. K. was gleaming golden in the 4 O’ clock sun, smiling on my ludicrous day.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Monday, September 04, 2006
An Encounter with Reality!
Dedicated to my Mom!
--This is a pure work of fiction and all the thoughts stated here are my own perceptions--
It was on one of the travels back from the US that I met this person, who changed my view of the reality forever and ever …
Life had been hectic for me as a software engineer, and by nature, myself being a long familiar homesick, often used to honker on when I can take a vacation. It was on one of such visits from the US, that I came across this person. He was flying to take part in a convention in India.
He was in his mid 50s, was a big figure with a long beard, resembling the wizard in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. He was reading a magazine quietly, but often ejecting a derisive smile. I was sitting near the window, and often tried to peep into what he was reading so that I could make sense of what he was laughing at. On one of my tries to look into his article he caught me, and introduced himself as a professor of philosophy at a renowned university in California. Wow! I was excited, since it was the best university I had in mind, if I ever chose to do higher studies in my favorite field. I had a strong handshake with him and then the dinner arrived. I just shot a natural joke saying, “Ok, now I can think of the dining philosopher’s problem” and he smirked at it.
After dinner, we started talking on various subjects, but soon got into the concept of defining reality. I asked him of his thoughts on reality, and found him to be overwhelmed at that query. He said smiling, “You have asked the right question”. He started his explanation in overtones, most of which went over head. He said, “Actually… there is nothing called a reality. Everything is just a perception or imagination. You see things defined by your senses and you believe that they exist. But actually there is nothing in this world that exists… the world itself does not exist”. “What”!! I disagreed perplexed. I ‘ve heard philosophers are crazy people, but looks like they are mad, but then how can a mad person be employed for a great university? I don’t know… may be he was correct. I asked for an explanation about his logic.
He continued. “Whatever you see in this world is something which is defined by your mind, and mind is modeled over your senses. If you had the ability to see through sound and hear through your eyes, then the reality you feel would have been different. Hence reality is something different”. I interrupted him saying, “But then, there must be an ultimate reality, which controls the whole world, or who created these perceptions”?. I was trying to associate what he was up to with concepts I had gathered from the movie “The Matrix”. But, it looked like his thoughts were above the philosophies of a computer-generated world in the matrix. I continued, “There must be a controlling force so that things should fall in place”. He disagreed. “There is nothing like a supernatural thing, because for anything to exist, there must be something which could have created it. And if you follow that path of finding the parent, then there is no end to it. You may argue that, the reason for the first event does not have any valid cause that would satisfy human intelligence, but there must be something. But try thinking this way: There had been nothing before the universe began. There is actually nothing now as well. It was empty before, and it is empty now. Whatever you feel like existing does not exist. It is just a thought. A thought, which does not have any physical existence, but just an illusion, that got evolved into a big framework where we all think we live and which we try to define by our senses to be “perceptible” and believe in that. We believe in the three dimensional space and think it is real. But, actually there is nothing like a space or time and what is present is just vacuum”.
I interrupted him again: ”Sir, then who created these senses?”. “Senses are a matter of evolution. If you can just vision, you can call that primary thought to be something called a “mind”. Mind defined a space around it called a body and believed that it exists. But apparently it itself was just a thought. Mind could not yet formulate a way of sustaining the thoughts for long. This supreme thought formulated a framework to experiment its own existence, which it called the “universe”. This evolution led to everything, even life. Life is interesting because it was a kind of transmissible thought. That is, a thought trying to think and define its existence, which is a property, it inherited from the supreme. Life, like any other supreme thought was in accordance with the limits of time. I mean, time, which is just a perception, is something, which tries to limit the experimentation of a primary thought item. Time, defined the life of a thought. And we as humans try to invent or discover items in the universe, trying to get clues about the supreme or the ultimate cause, which actually is an attempt which the supreme itself might be trying…” The professor continued.
“Interesting…”, I said, suppressing a big yawn. The professor gave a disgusting look at that. We had completed our dinner and it was getting time for me to sleep. Professor read my mind and said, “Yes, I know that whatever I said might look preposterous at first. But if you think deep into it, you ‘ll feel that whatever I said make sense”. Saying that, he went back reading his magazine. I slowly smuggled into my blanket. But the thought of “thoughts” just brooded in my subconscious for long and long…
--This is a pure work of fiction and all the thoughts stated here are my own perceptions--
It was on one of the travels back from the US that I met this person, who changed my view of the reality forever and ever …
Life had been hectic for me as a software engineer, and by nature, myself being a long familiar homesick, often used to honker on when I can take a vacation. It was on one of such visits from the US, that I came across this person. He was flying to take part in a convention in India.
He was in his mid 50s, was a big figure with a long beard, resembling the wizard in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. He was reading a magazine quietly, but often ejecting a derisive smile. I was sitting near the window, and often tried to peep into what he was reading so that I could make sense of what he was laughing at. On one of my tries to look into his article he caught me, and introduced himself as a professor of philosophy at a renowned university in California. Wow! I was excited, since it was the best university I had in mind, if I ever chose to do higher studies in my favorite field. I had a strong handshake with him and then the dinner arrived. I just shot a natural joke saying, “Ok, now I can think of the dining philosopher’s problem” and he smirked at it.
After dinner, we started talking on various subjects, but soon got into the concept of defining reality. I asked him of his thoughts on reality, and found him to be overwhelmed at that query. He said smiling, “You have asked the right question”. He started his explanation in overtones, most of which went over head. He said, “Actually… there is nothing called a reality. Everything is just a perception or imagination. You see things defined by your senses and you believe that they exist. But actually there is nothing in this world that exists… the world itself does not exist”. “What”!! I disagreed perplexed. I ‘ve heard philosophers are crazy people, but looks like they are mad, but then how can a mad person be employed for a great university? I don’t know… may be he was correct. I asked for an explanation about his logic.
He continued. “Whatever you see in this world is something which is defined by your mind, and mind is modeled over your senses. If you had the ability to see through sound and hear through your eyes, then the reality you feel would have been different. Hence reality is something different”. I interrupted him saying, “But then, there must be an ultimate reality, which controls the whole world, or who created these perceptions”?. I was trying to associate what he was up to with concepts I had gathered from the movie “The Matrix”. But, it looked like his thoughts were above the philosophies of a computer-generated world in the matrix. I continued, “There must be a controlling force so that things should fall in place”. He disagreed. “There is nothing like a supernatural thing, because for anything to exist, there must be something which could have created it. And if you follow that path of finding the parent, then there is no end to it. You may argue that, the reason for the first event does not have any valid cause that would satisfy human intelligence, but there must be something. But try thinking this way: There had been nothing before the universe began. There is actually nothing now as well. It was empty before, and it is empty now. Whatever you feel like existing does not exist. It is just a thought. A thought, which does not have any physical existence, but just an illusion, that got evolved into a big framework where we all think we live and which we try to define by our senses to be “perceptible” and believe in that. We believe in the three dimensional space and think it is real. But, actually there is nothing like a space or time and what is present is just vacuum”.
I interrupted him again: ”Sir, then who created these senses?”. “Senses are a matter of evolution. If you can just vision, you can call that primary thought to be something called a “mind”. Mind defined a space around it called a body and believed that it exists. But apparently it itself was just a thought. Mind could not yet formulate a way of sustaining the thoughts for long. This supreme thought formulated a framework to experiment its own existence, which it called the “universe”. This evolution led to everything, even life. Life is interesting because it was a kind of transmissible thought. That is, a thought trying to think and define its existence, which is a property, it inherited from the supreme. Life, like any other supreme thought was in accordance with the limits of time. I mean, time, which is just a perception, is something, which tries to limit the experimentation of a primary thought item. Time, defined the life of a thought. And we as humans try to invent or discover items in the universe, trying to get clues about the supreme or the ultimate cause, which actually is an attempt which the supreme itself might be trying…” The professor continued.
“Interesting…”, I said, suppressing a big yawn. The professor gave a disgusting look at that. We had completed our dinner and it was getting time for me to sleep. Professor read my mind and said, “Yes, I know that whatever I said might look preposterous at first. But if you think deep into it, you ‘ll feel that whatever I said make sense”. Saying that, he went back reading his magazine. I slowly smuggled into my blanket. But the thought of “thoughts” just brooded in my subconscious for long and long…
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Time just moves on...
While cleaning up my harddisk, came across this old blog of mine. Felt a bit nostalgic and hence thought of publishing it here. It was written during the new year of 2005.
The days to come, are just dreams,
Only the days that passed, are our own !!
31st DEC 2003- A year ago
I was sitting inside NBAP lab, coding the RadioLinkSetupRequest procedure. I pressed ":wq" on my vim editor, gave a make at the prompt and just turned around! I can see Rajeev and Nayaka through the glassy barrier, in the next lab, vigourously discussing something. In between, Susama intervening, arguing and then turning back at the computer, continuing her documentation. I can see Aakash, running around with a piece of wire, behind dhadha, searching for something. Ratan, opened the door of our lab, and seems, he has some new doubt in the dsp code !! Nileena is sitting in the diagonal lab, infront of a big monitor, moving her eyes from one end of the monitor to the other end !! And if I see strictly through the glassy barrier, I can see a bald head, over the computers at quite a distance, which belongs to none other than our cats and dogs man !! It was quite a bit difficult to look at Rajesh, since his head was behind a PC, which always showed beautiful photos of all tamil heroines !! That PC belonged to Sheik and on the other side, there sat our roaring tiger, Mahesh, who seemed always busy at finding new things ! Hey, Anil is coming, with his big muscles ! But his face reflected sadness ! He came and told, "I had a fight with my Gym instructer and he threw me on the floor" ! How saad !
31st DEC 2004 - Today
I am sitting inside my cubicle, coding the GPS synchronization procedure. I cannot press ":wq" since everything is checked in and am leaving Motorola next week. Rajeev is not sitting in the next lab. He is in Philips and discussing with somebody else. Its not Nayaka, since Nayaka is in cdot. Susama, is no more doing any documentation. She is in Samsung and doing log analysis of a compltely working 3G system. And
where is Aakash ? I cant even see him, since he has moved to Noida, and is totally out of his dream 3G project. He is close to his home and his engagement is over ! Now-a-days, Ratan is not seen around ? Oh ! he too is in Noida, and is weeping on the failure of his project. Now he doesn't come to me for coding doubts. Nileena, has moved from the old second floor location, but still doing the same work. She has completed the
design of a card, which she had started last year and is testing it. And even if I try from here, I cant see that bald head over there. The cats and dogs man has moved from there to somewhere else. It seems, the entire
company is getting moved from the current location. Now, that pc with the photos of all those nice looking thalli girls, is no more there. The person owning that pc, has moved to Lucent. What about the person who sat opposite to him ? Oh Mahesh, he is in sasken now. Again in the second floor, but keeping up the same habit. And where is Anil ? Oh, his marriage is over naa... he is honeymooning ...
I never imagined, a year can bring such a great change.
But there is more to Come ... Lets Welcome the new year 2005 ! !
The days to come, are just dreams,
Only the days that passed, are our own !!
31st DEC 2003- A year ago
I was sitting inside NBAP lab, coding the RadioLinkSetupRequest procedure. I pressed ":wq" on my vim editor, gave a make at the prompt and just turned around! I can see Rajeev and Nayaka through the glassy barrier, in the next lab, vigourously discussing something. In between, Susama intervening, arguing and then turning back at the computer, continuing her documentation. I can see Aakash, running around with a piece of wire, behind dhadha, searching for something. Ratan, opened the door of our lab, and seems, he has some new doubt in the dsp code !! Nileena is sitting in the diagonal lab, infront of a big monitor, moving her eyes from one end of the monitor to the other end !! And if I see strictly through the glassy barrier, I can see a bald head, over the computers at quite a distance, which belongs to none other than our cats and dogs man !! It was quite a bit difficult to look at Rajesh, since his head was behind a PC, which always showed beautiful photos of all tamil heroines !! That PC belonged to Sheik and on the other side, there sat our roaring tiger, Mahesh, who seemed always busy at finding new things ! Hey, Anil is coming, with his big muscles ! But his face reflected sadness ! He came and told, "I had a fight with my Gym instructer and he threw me on the floor" ! How saad !
31st DEC 2004 - Today
I am sitting inside my cubicle, coding the GPS synchronization procedure. I cannot press ":wq" since everything is checked in and am leaving Motorola next week. Rajeev is not sitting in the next lab. He is in Philips and discussing with somebody else. Its not Nayaka, since Nayaka is in cdot. Susama, is no more doing any documentation. She is in Samsung and doing log analysis of a compltely working 3G system. And
where is Aakash ? I cant even see him, since he has moved to Noida, and is totally out of his dream 3G project. He is close to his home and his engagement is over ! Now-a-days, Ratan is not seen around ? Oh ! he too is in Noida, and is weeping on the failure of his project. Now he doesn't come to me for coding doubts. Nileena, has moved from the old second floor location, but still doing the same work. She has completed the
design of a card, which she had started last year and is testing it. And even if I try from here, I cant see that bald head over there. The cats and dogs man has moved from there to somewhere else. It seems, the entire
company is getting moved from the current location. Now, that pc with the photos of all those nice looking thalli girls, is no more there. The person owning that pc, has moved to Lucent. What about the person who sat opposite to him ? Oh Mahesh, he is in sasken now. Again in the second floor, but keeping up the same habit. And where is Anil ? Oh, his marriage is over naa... he is honeymooning ...
I never imagined, a year can bring such a great change.
But there is more to Come ... Lets Welcome the new year 2005 ! !
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Generations!
Suddenly the choir changed the tempo and I just came back to the occasion. It was the marriage of my cousin sister and we all had assembled in the church to bless the occasion. The priest was chanting something in Syrian, which were like magic words for all of us. May be that was required for the marriage to happen… I don’t know… strange customs that nobody know, but has to happen for the ceremony to get over! Marriage, another strange event in one’s life, when the bride and the groom ask the public for permission to live together and bring their progeny to the crowd. If the crowd disagrees, then the offspring is orphaned by the society. Interesting to look at humanly traits that sometimes go beyond logic, even though we are considered the brilliant among living things. Another aspect of this is that, if the society abandons a bride and groom from their desire, then they can avail a legal way of getting married. So the rule supports it, but the rulers do not. Ha! Private rules for the bride and the groom!
The priest was still chanting something and blessing the bride, when my thoughts ran a few years back, when we were all kids and were playing some funny games during the mid summer vacation, camped in grandma’s house. Its hardly a decade ago and we were all pretty small kids and were all equals. The past has moved to present, a generation has gone under the earth and I see, those kids have grown up now, married and have their kids playing on their laps. My grandma and her generation are all forgotten now and we all live in the present, with our own daily complexities of life, trying to nurture the future generation. Its all obvious, yet baffling sometimes. Why do I exist here? "Just" to nurture a future generation?
Looking around in the church, I found a photo of Jesus, slanting from the wall. The belief in rebirth is something that has implications in all religions, I think. But looking at it from another perspective, isn’t it that our progenies are our previous generations reborn? Like Richard Dawkins story of 'the selfish gene' goes, isn’t it that the basic materials that built the new generation, built from the older ones? If I think of it, I can see myself as a leaf of a gigantic tree, where there must exist an unknown link from me to the first living thing on this planet. If that link is broken somewhere, then I cannot exist now! I might be the rebirth of someone of the older generation, but I don’t know. It can also happen that many me-s exist now. Abstraction aids ignorance and hides the implementation!
Seeing that I was looking around and not listening to the prayers, I noticed a teasing look from the vicar, who had almost completed the prayers required for knot tie-ing ceremony to begin. Its something we copied from the Hindu culture. It’s something I really liked and which makes me proud of the secularism prevailing in this country. We might be of any culture or religion, but we all have a foundation, which makes us different from the rest of the world. That’s something cool to think about!
I was getting a bit bored with the things going on around me, which I don’t quite understand. All that mattered was that "very moment", the moment when that marriage took place, which marked the beginning of a new generation. Every moment has its work to do, which it does and vanishes somewhere. So is the moment when I am writing this and you are reading this. But interestingly, if you look at it, the moment, which created these words on moments, will always carry with it the presence of this very moment!
The marriage was all over and we all moved to the reception at the auditorium. From somewhere outside I came to hear this old pessimistic hindi film song: “Aanewaala pal jaane waala hey, Ho sake tho ismein zindagi bithaalo, pal yeh tho jaane walaa hey” (the moment to arrive has to leave, so if possible try to live in this moment, since this moment has to depart soon)!
The priest was still chanting something and blessing the bride, when my thoughts ran a few years back, when we were all kids and were playing some funny games during the mid summer vacation, camped in grandma’s house. Its hardly a decade ago and we were all pretty small kids and were all equals. The past has moved to present, a generation has gone under the earth and I see, those kids have grown up now, married and have their kids playing on their laps. My grandma and her generation are all forgotten now and we all live in the present, with our own daily complexities of life, trying to nurture the future generation. Its all obvious, yet baffling sometimes. Why do I exist here? "Just" to nurture a future generation?
Looking around in the church, I found a photo of Jesus, slanting from the wall. The belief in rebirth is something that has implications in all religions, I think. But looking at it from another perspective, isn’t it that our progenies are our previous generations reborn? Like Richard Dawkins story of 'the selfish gene' goes, isn’t it that the basic materials that built the new generation, built from the older ones? If I think of it, I can see myself as a leaf of a gigantic tree, where there must exist an unknown link from me to the first living thing on this planet. If that link is broken somewhere, then I cannot exist now! I might be the rebirth of someone of the older generation, but I don’t know. It can also happen that many me-s exist now. Abstraction aids ignorance and hides the implementation!
Seeing that I was looking around and not listening to the prayers, I noticed a teasing look from the vicar, who had almost completed the prayers required for knot tie-ing ceremony to begin. Its something we copied from the Hindu culture. It’s something I really liked and which makes me proud of the secularism prevailing in this country. We might be of any culture or religion, but we all have a foundation, which makes us different from the rest of the world. That’s something cool to think about!
I was getting a bit bored with the things going on around me, which I don’t quite understand. All that mattered was that "very moment", the moment when that marriage took place, which marked the beginning of a new generation. Every moment has its work to do, which it does and vanishes somewhere. So is the moment when I am writing this and you are reading this. But interestingly, if you look at it, the moment, which created these words on moments, will always carry with it the presence of this very moment!
The marriage was all over and we all moved to the reception at the auditorium. From somewhere outside I came to hear this old pessimistic hindi film song: “Aanewaala pal jaane waala hey, Ho sake tho ismein zindagi bithaalo, pal yeh tho jaane walaa hey” (the moment to arrive has to leave, so if possible try to live in this moment, since this moment has to depart soon)!
Monday, February 27, 2006
Through the veins of Calcutta!
The long awaited visit to the cultural capital of India, thus came with a spry and soon we found ourselves in the middle of a heritage less perforated by any western sophistication.
It was the marriage of our test lead Ananda with Ruby and it was an opportunity for us to have a preview of the land of the Bengalis, people who have immensely contributed to the culture and prosperity of our country. We were a group of seven from Windows Fax team from Microsoft India, consisting of Anand, Ajay, Naresh, Nilesh, Raghav, Renu and Myself. We did a good planning for flying, but Airdeccan was as usual sluggish in taking us on time. Seemed like they never bothered to take up punctuality in their list of qualities.
After a two-hour journey from Hyderabad, we landed in Calcutta, newly named as Kolkota, with the ‘o’ phonetically stressed, which signified Bengali articulation. Archan, our colleague and a resident of the city, with Manoj, our dev lead, who had landed in the city the day before, were there to receive us at the airport. Thus our exploration began…
From the list of items to visit, the first destination was Saurabh Ganguly’s restaurant, named Saurabhs. We were late for the lunch, but never wanted to start off our journey without filled bowels. There was a bit of confusion on the availability of buffet and we were misguided by the receptionist, which culminated in abandoning the restaurant. Finally, we crossed the road to have lunch at Golden Spoon, a typical Bengali restaurant. The food did not meet our expectations, but was ok for that time of the day. Later, we started off to have a preview of the whole city. We went over the old Howrah bridge, which stood as a mark of the city. The bridge was a marvel of perfect British engineering and fascinated us with the technology it hosted to carry along the heaviest, without any support from the Hoogly river. Later we moved across the new Howrah bridge. I did not miss the opportunity to take the beautiful snaps of the catenary, over the gleaming waters of the hoogly river basking in the dusk.
It was over 6 O clock, when we reached our roosting place in Saltlake, a residential locality where Archan stayed. Renu got separated at the airport, to meet her uncle and we were seven of us again together, with Archan to get all the data of the places to visit and then “mismanage” our trip. We were getting late for the marriage ceremony and hence rushed ourselves pulling over the kurtas and pyjamas!
The marriage was a pleasant experience for most of us, but a heavy experience for Nilesh, who dared to support, with three others, the ceremony of bringing the bride seated over a thick flat board, from her room and then making seven circles around the groom. The bride had covered her face with beetle leaves. She should not uncover her face until she made seven rounds over the groom, and then come face to face. At last, the hepta circles were over and the bride came in front of the groom and other interesting ceremonies started… we all slowly moved on to have food. The dinner reflected the richness of Bengali cuisine, with varieties of fish and mutton. Though chicken was also a favorite item, it was a bad time for chicken dishes due to the outbreak of bird flu across the country.
We reached back to our residence around 11 and then started the excitement of card games. It was the biggest excitement of the day, when we all wanted to have a brain dump game and Manoj came up with the idea of the “snatching spoon”. The game took off to its pinnacle when Ajay became the “donkey” and later graduating to complete “dumbbell” when Naresh and Ajay had to fight for the spoon. We all became donkeys one by one and finally Nilesh, Naresh and Manoj remained. It still hangs around in my mind, a tensed Nilesh, snatching the spoon from Manoj, with all the strength from his thick muscles and uttering his typical dialogue “Kya ho raha hey iss desh mein” at times… Naresh and Manoj came out as winners and we all slept at 2:30 am, thus closing the chapter of day one…
It was the marriage of our test lead Ananda with Ruby and it was an opportunity for us to have a preview of the land of the Bengalis, people who have immensely contributed to the culture and prosperity of our country. We were a group of seven from Windows Fax team from Microsoft India, consisting of Anand, Ajay, Naresh, Nilesh, Raghav, Renu and Myself. We did a good planning for flying, but Airdeccan was as usual sluggish in taking us on time. Seemed like they never bothered to take up punctuality in their list of qualities.
After a two-hour journey from Hyderabad, we landed in Calcutta, newly named as Kolkota, with the ‘o’ phonetically stressed, which signified Bengali articulation. Archan, our colleague and a resident of the city, with Manoj, our dev lead, who had landed in the city the day before, were there to receive us at the airport. Thus our exploration began…
From the list of items to visit, the first destination was Saurabh Ganguly’s restaurant, named Saurabhs. We were late for the lunch, but never wanted to start off our journey without filled bowels. There was a bit of confusion on the availability of buffet and we were misguided by the receptionist, which culminated in abandoning the restaurant. Finally, we crossed the road to have lunch at Golden Spoon, a typical Bengali restaurant. The food did not meet our expectations, but was ok for that time of the day. Later, we started off to have a preview of the whole city. We went over the old Howrah bridge, which stood as a mark of the city. The bridge was a marvel of perfect British engineering and fascinated us with the technology it hosted to carry along the heaviest, without any support from the Hoogly river. Later we moved across the new Howrah bridge. I did not miss the opportunity to take the beautiful snaps of the catenary, over the gleaming waters of the hoogly river basking in the dusk.
It was over 6 O clock, when we reached our roosting place in Saltlake, a residential locality where Archan stayed. Renu got separated at the airport, to meet her uncle and we were seven of us again together, with Archan to get all the data of the places to visit and then “mismanage” our trip. We were getting late for the marriage ceremony and hence rushed ourselves pulling over the kurtas and pyjamas!
The marriage was a pleasant experience for most of us, but a heavy experience for Nilesh, who dared to support, with three others, the ceremony of bringing the bride seated over a thick flat board, from her room and then making seven circles around the groom. The bride had covered her face with beetle leaves. She should not uncover her face until she made seven rounds over the groom, and then come face to face. At last, the hepta circles were over and the bride came in front of the groom and other interesting ceremonies started… we all slowly moved on to have food. The dinner reflected the richness of Bengali cuisine, with varieties of fish and mutton. Though chicken was also a favorite item, it was a bad time for chicken dishes due to the outbreak of bird flu across the country.
We reached back to our residence around 11 and then started the excitement of card games. It was the biggest excitement of the day, when we all wanted to have a brain dump game and Manoj came up with the idea of the “snatching spoon”. The game took off to its pinnacle when Ajay became the “donkey” and later graduating to complete “dumbbell” when Naresh and Ajay had to fight for the spoon. We all became donkeys one by one and finally Nilesh, Naresh and Manoj remained. It still hangs around in my mind, a tensed Nilesh, snatching the spoon from Manoj, with all the strength from his thick muscles and uttering his typical dialogue “Kya ho raha hey iss desh mein” at times… Naresh and Manoj came out as winners and we all slept at 2:30 am, thus closing the chapter of day one…
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