The Joy of Wishing and Gifting

Couldn't realize how and when my habit of buying greeting cards simply died out. In fact, during our early school days we’re encouraged to make greeting cards out of our own creativity. Even though I had a high level of expertise in the field of drawing/creativity kind of stuffs and that too, to such an extent that I found it extremely difficult to even draw my basic academic biology diagrams. But still I somehow managed to make few New Year/Diwali/Birthday greeting cards for my friends and loved ones. Later there was a phase in my life when I used to send E-Cards to my friends on special occasions. Well, that was much more convenient for me and just like earlier days, my emotional level more or less was still the same. Now days I usually wish my friends and relatives through Facebook post, but I don’t think I've ever compromised with my feelings and I wish them with the same level of love and affection, as I used to in my childhood days. Everything seems to be so commercialized in the present world, but it just couldn’t take away our sentiments. With time and technology the way we wish people on special occasions have changed, but the level of excitement and empathy remains the same.

Even now also whenever I use to receive gifts in any form from anybody, I feel as happy and excited as I used to be as a child. Gifts definitely have some sort of magical effects on most of us and I hope nobody would misunderstand me as a male  chauvinist, if I dare to say that the effect could be much higher for our superior female counterparts. With emerging technologies, like most other things the way of giving gifts have also changed. But the joy and pleasure of gifting hasn't changed at all. In today’s modern and sophisticated world we often forget to buy gifts, not because we don't intend to buy but may be we're just little too busy and tired. But with websites like giftisaha.com, one could no longer give any such excuses. Well, giftisaha.com is a unique gifting portal and they are the experts in the field of gifting. This Diwali you could very well surprise your near and dear ones with some amazing personalized gifts. giftisaha.com has taken Diwali gifting to a whole new level of personalization with their personalized Diwali Gifts.

As I am writing about gifts, so would like to mention a couple of little humorous incidents which are closely associated with the joy of gifting. We have a friend and during our bachelor days he was very obsessed about his birthday gifts. He used to irritate ask most of his friends to give him gifts on his birthday. For guys like us, he usually used to ask once or twice. But he had some soft targets and to them he used to torture like hell, reminder after reminder. Ultimately he was quite successful enough to receive a good collection of gifts on the occasion of his birthday, that too without giving any good damn party. 

During my college days one of our senior friends told us a story about his younger brother. The incident happened during one Durga Puja time, when his brother was in his 2nd standard. People were quite busy buying gifts and our little hero already received a couple of dresses from his parents. It seemed he eyed on a particular piece of new dress and he was pretty much determined to somehow get that. But his parents were not at all interested to buy him any more dress for that Durga Puja. The kid tried all possible ways but his parents were adamant at their point. So ultimately our hero thought of something offbeat and one fine morning he went to the nearby busy street and simply undressed himself completely. Whenever any known person used to pass by, they had a conversation with him. The little boy used to say “I don’t have any dress to wear. What to do? Even on the auspicious occasion of Durga Puja also my parents never bother to buy me any new dress” The kid stayed on that street for almost a couple of hours and then the news started to spread. By afternoon, his parents came to know about the incident and later on the same evening, the boy was extremely delighted to receive the same desired gift from his parents. 

Gifting is not only limited to friends and relatives, even the corporate also love to gift their employees on their birthdays, on Christmas, on New Year, on the occasion of their marriage and the list could simply be endless. Corporate gifts could be important for a company's image and might help in building a strong relationship with its clients. It’s already under the HR policies for many of the corporate. With more than 10 years of experience in the business of corporate gifting and catering to clients from various industries, giftisaha.com have effectively catered to more than 500,000 customers and still counting.

An Unplanned Trip, Part-2

An Unplanned Trip, Part-1

So it was around 2 AM and the cab driver was waiting for us near our apartment gate.  We asked him to wait for 10 minutes and we just took a couple of towels and one handbag and yes, we also took one of our laptop. We were so much thrilled for our night road trip and wanted to enjoy every moment of it by listening to our favorite songs.  It took us a while to move out of the city and once it touched the highway we felt the actual thrill. In order to go to Coorg from Bangalore, one need to drive through Mysore. For a perfect and refreshing road trip by car all throughout the journey better have a look at this page facebook.com/AmbiPurIndia

Coorg is a very fascinating place situated at the Western Ghats of southwestern Karnataka and is located at a distance of 250 KM from Bangalore. Some websites even mention Coorg as "Scotland of South India" Well, it’s not too much exaggerated. The Bangalore Mysore highway is smooth enough and most of the people usually drive at a speed of 100-130 KMPH. We kept the windows open as the cigarette continued to switch hands very frequently. During the night we played the famous Judas Priest song "NightCrawler" several times. Oh! I just love that song, specially the lyrics and the situation was so perfect to play it over and over again. 

Just a copy paste of some part of the lyrics:

Howling winds keep screaming round 

And the rain comes pouring down 

Doors are locked and bolted now 

As the thing crawls into town 

Straight out of hell 

One of a kind 

Stalking his victims 

Don't look behind you, Nightcrawler 

We reached Mysore by around 4:30 AM and it was still dark outside. After a few minutes it was almost dawn and we could see some form of light outside. We didn’t sleep the whole night, except those short naps. I just couldn’t have waited to listen one of more Judas Priest classics “Before the dawn” Oh! Man what a lyrics, just too good. 

Mentioning just few lines of it:

Before the dawn, I hear you whisper

In your sleep "Don't let the morning take him" 

Outside the birds begin to call

As if to summon up my leaving

I played that song almost 4-5 times and stopped only when it was totally bright outside. Even though we were pretty much tired but the early morning freshness recharged us.

As we drove through the forests of Madikeri, the cool breeze was extremely refreshing. The early morning heavenly forest smell was so mesmeric and as the dew drops kissed all over our faces, everyone felt terribly euphoric. We stopped the car at several places and kept starring at the clouds and the hills. OMG! That was such an wonderful moment and I can’t really express in words. We reached Coorg by around 8 AM and then we looked for a hotel. Our intention was to take the cheapest possible hotel, as our plan was just to rest and get refreshed for a couple of hours.  

Later we had a heavy breakfast and went for sightseeing. Firstly we visited the famous Abbey falls and stayed there for about half an hour. It's very refreshing out there and the place is always foggy all throughout the day. We so much wanted to experience river rafting and without wasting mush time we went to the spot. Fortunately we didn’t have to wait much longer for our turn. When Sinha came to know that they would charge Rs 900 per head, he immediate opted himself out from it. Actually Sinha had no clue about rafting and he thought we would be paying them just for some boating. So Sinha remained in the car along with the driver and expected us to return within an hour. That was my first rafting experience and I could never forget the thrill. That was one of the best thing I have ever done so far. It started smoothly and after a while the thrill began. The river stream was surrounded by hills and there was complete greenery all around.

The current of downstream water was very furious and at some points it was totally breathtaking. Our guide was an excellent fellow and on the way he narrated us few rafting stories of Rishikesh, as earlier he was posted out there. We crossed one hurdle after another and as I looked back, I just couldn’t believe we actually came through that way. It almost felt as if I was part of Nation Geographic that moment.

At some point the water was still and the guide asked us to swim. Even I also tried to swim for a while. It was so wonderful moment, but I was also little scarred, not of crocodiles but of drowning. The entire rafting took almost 3 hours and that was a life time experience. Well, there are few things which are really priceless and can't be measured with money. By the time we returned back we were damn tired, yet so refreshed. We just wanted to further liquefy our bodies along with some very heavy lunch and we did exactly the same thing. 

It was already 4 PM and we decided to visit the famous Tibetan monastery. Even though I’m not a great fan of religious places, but that monastery was something different. It was calm as well as very relaxing and we spent almost one hour out there. Later we had some tea and started our return road drive, back to Bangalore. As we passed through the forests we got to see few waterfalls. Well, I always return with a heavy heart whenever I use to come back from any forest. Our return drive was also quite exciting and thrilling. On the way we had dinner at a dhaba, along with icy chilled holy water and returned home by midnight. 

This post is written for Indiblogger’s "The Perfect Road Trip" contest in association with "AmbiPur"

Image courtesy: google images

An Unplanned Trip, Part-1

During my forced bachelor days, as my wife was in Pune for a year, my favorite weekend hangout destination was the place where I used to stay earlier with my friends. Once I left that house, many of our friends stayed there and later whenever I used to visit that house, every time I got to see a new face(s), mostly some juniors from our college. The place was damn exotic, extremely clean and was extraordinarily tidy, almost like Hell. Every time we wished to visit there, we had to mentally prepare ourselves on few things. Like for instance, the cooking gas could have been finished in the middle of the night and we actually experienced that situation several times, but fortunately we never had to sleep with empty stomach. Conditions of both the bathrooms out there were only slightly better that some of those abandoned railway platform bathrooms. During the weekends, the two bedroom apartment usually used to accommodate around 12-15 guys.  Few of our friends preferred to sleep at the Hall itself, where we partied the entire night. The next morning afternoon, we used to notice that those guys were sleeping just beside the chicken bones, some empty glasses, couple of half filled glasses, pea nuts, chips and some left over chicken pieces. Wow! the Hall smelled so aromatic and even the maid also refused to work out there. But whatever, we used to get immense pleasure and used to get completely refreshed after spending the weekend out there. 

As the weekend used to approach, Sinha always dreamed to sleep at least for 30-35 hours over the weekend and he usually used to switch off his mobile by Thursday morning. Sinha was the kind of personal whom none of our friends wanted to miss in the weekends, he was so in demand. Even thought we had to do little hard work, but I and Lami somehow managed to convince Sinha for our weekend get together. During my forced bachelor days, Trideev was in Bangalore for a couple of months and he used to stay with me. One Saturday we planned to have a great get together at our favorite place. But we were on a little different mood that evening and planned to watch a movie together at the nearby multiplex.  But all the tickets were sold out and the only option we had was to watch a Tusshar Kapoor thriller “Aggar” Well, Sinha didn’t like the idea at all, but ultimately we decided to go for it. We booked our tickets and we had a couple of hours before the blog buster could have started. 

We entered one of the nearby Dhaba to liquefy our bodies. We were having a great time and people already started to give ideas and all of a sudden someone said "We guys are meeting after so long, let’s make it more exciting. What about a trip?"

Another friend replied "We could go to Nandi Hills early morning"

Sinha replied "How many times you guys would go to Nandi Hills?"

I said "What about Coorg? Let’s go tonight and we could come back tomorrow evening"

Trideev was very excited with the idea and Lami as usual, always ready for whatever we guys were up to. Mriganka also sounded positive, but I was pretty much doubtful about Sinha. But what the Hell? Even Sinha was also ready for it. Even though we were aware of the fact that Sinha used to behave quite differently under the influence of heavenly fluids, but we were little surprised with the extent he got influenced that moment. I immediately booked a Cab for our Coorg trip and asked the driver to come by 2 AM. Coorg is a very fascinating place situated in the Western Ghats of southwestern Karnataka and is located at a distance of 250 KM from Bangalore. Some websites even mention Coorg as "Scotland of South India". I already visited Coorg but missed the river rafting on the first occasion. Well, Coorg is quite famous for river rafting and possibly it's the second best place in India. Beyond any doubt Rishikesh would be the best place of river rafting in this part of the world. I was so much interested for rafting that time, although it's a different thing that till now I couldn't learn the trick to resist the gravitational forces in water without any life jacket and sometimes panic even after wearing it.

It was already 10 PM and it was the time for our encounter with Tusshar Kapoor. As we entered inside the theater, we noticed that 90% of the Hall was empty. We expected more audience once the movie get started, but we were wrong. There was a similar kind of group like us and they already started to applaud the movie and particularly Tusshar Kapoor, by clapping their hands. It was an ultimate thriller and I could remember one particular scene where Tusshar Kapoor’s face was extremely expressive, as he played the flute. The entire audience couldn’t stop themselves and the Hall came alive, people started to clap and whistle. Our group was also not very far behind and that was the most interesting part of the movie. 

After the movie we went back to our Hell and waited for the cab. It was already 1:30 AM and the cab driver never bothered to call us. As the influence of the heavenly fluids started to diminish, Sinha looked little worried. He said that he might have taken the wrong decision and was quite happy that the cab driver didn’t call. But then all of a sudden we received a call and got to know that the driver was waiting just near our apartment gate.

Next Part->

Forbidden

Cable Television was already introduced, but it was still the luxury of limited wealthy section of the society and the remaining people were pretty much satisfied with our very own Doordarshan. During our schooldays, we noticed those huge dish antenna's in some wealthy colonies and even at the terrace of some fat cats of our town. I think I was in my 7th or 8th standard, when cable connection came to a colony very near to our house. Well, it was a good business opportunity for some of the unemployed youths of our locality. We were pretty much excited with that, but the cable guys were not ready to extend their business to our territory. They said that there were very few houses  in our area and they had to pull a huge cable. The installation cost would be much more and also it would have been very difficult for them to maintain. But most of the people didn’t want to miss that opportunity, especially grownup kids like us, the house wives and particularly few young uncles. Ultimately it was being decided that the cable connection would come to our region and everyone supposed to share the installation cost.

But there was a slight problem, we had a lawyer neighbor and he was not at all interested for the cable connection. He used to say "Watching TV is HARAM", but he already had a TV at his house and his entire family enjoyed Chitrahaar and the Sunday evening movies on Doordarshan. 

When the cable guys tried to pressurize him he said "Bro, first of all I shouldn't have kept TV at my house, but unfortunately my wife and kids can’t live without it. Now you guys asking me to take cable connection? Aur kitna paap karwawoge mujhse? how many more sins you guys would ask me to do?

Later, somehow they were able to convince the lawyer and finally he took the cable connection. After few days, their business progressed and they were blessed with many more new connections. In order to continue their good quality of service, the cable guys needed to put some amplifiers. After some research, they identified that the lawyer’s house was the best place to put an amplifier. The guys discussed that with the lawyer, but he was not at all interested with the idea. He was quite upset that out of so many houses, they targeted his house only. He said that the amplifier would require power and that would have increased his electricity bill. The guys said that it’s just an amplifier and it wouldn’t have consumed more power than a transistor. They tried to convince him that his electricity bill wouldn’t have increased, even by 10-15 rupees per month for that amplifier. 

But the lawyer was adamant and said "Aree Bhai, watching TV is HARAM and on top of that, I already took cable connection. I am doing a big sin by watching cable TV and now you guys want me to put an amplifier at my house. That would only mean, indirectly I would be spreading this sin far and wide. I’m already a Paapi and you guys are determined to make me Maha Paapi."

The cable guys had a hard time for few more days and later they came up with a proposal. They asked the lawyer "Please allow us to put an amplifier at your residence and we would give you a discount of Rs 25 on your cable bill for every month."

Even though the lawyer initially hesitated, but ultimately he agreed on that.

Bhushan, The Techie

When I was in my 3rd semester of Engineering, I somehow managed to convince my father to buy me a desktop computer and ultimately bought one with a Celeron processor. Being a Computer Science Student, I was under the assumption and expected to give enough quality time to the magic box in order to become a computer genius in the next 3 years. But other than programming, I learned hell lot of other useful stuffs. Like for instance, whenever I used to get information that some guy recently got a cool music collection, I usually used to remove the hard disk from my system and used to carry it to his room. Somehow I used to convince him to open up his box, connected my hard disk and stored all the songs in it. The pirated movie CD’s were of pathetic conditions that time, as they used to hang very frequently and most of the time we had to restart the system, Aaaah! that was damn irritating. But later we got to know about some software which was able to play those kinds of CD’s smoothly without the pain of restarting the system. I also had the knowledge about some software using which I was able to store any part of the movie instead of the entire movie. That turned out to be extremely useful, as disk space was very limited those days and most of the time it was a waste to copy the entire movie, especially those entertaining kind of movies. Similarly I learned many other useful things related to computers during my Engineering days.

In the initial 3rd semester days, few of the guys were quite serious about computers, including some of our immediate seniors and everyone wanted to learn a little bit of programming. Most of us didn't know the A,B,C,D of how that damn thing worked, so we decided to join one small and affordable computer institute. We asked the guys out there to teach us from scratch, including how to switch it on and off. We learned the basics out there, including some programming as well. We continued there for a month and I think some of us didn’t even paid the entire fees. On our first day in that institute, one of the guys gave us enough gyaan and encouraged us “It’s a silly damn thing, you guys would definitely pick up pretty fast”. It was a small institute and we were 8-10 guys from our hostel. There were 3-4 computers in a room and they were placed close to each other. Everyone was pretty much excited to press the keyboard and see some output on the screen. Some of us enjoyed the paint and brush game and tried hard to make some kind of cartoon. 

But Bhushan seemed to be little upset, as he typed something on the keyboard but that didn’t reflect on his monitor. He tried few more times and then commented "Bhaak Saala, Kharab Wala Keyboard Haame Mila, it seems we got the spoiled keyboard"

The very next moment Gullu Da, our immediate senior screamed "Abbe Bhushan, why the hell are you pressing my keyboard?" So Bhushan actually typed on a different keyboard and expected output on his monitor.

Within the next couple of months my room was glorified with a desktop and I used to protect it with password. One day I was not in my room and Bhushan was in mood to watch few glimpses of a movie which was stored in my system.  Bhushan asked Nair about my password and Nair replied that I never used to share password with him. Bhushan continued to bug him for a long time. Later when I came back to my room and as I typed my password, Bhushan tried really hard to concentrate. After successful authentication, Bhushan had his typical weird kind of smile on his face and he whispered on Nair ear "Abbe Nair, I got the password"

Nair was also excited and whispered "Wow! great Bhushan, so what is the password?"

Bhushan proudly and confidently replied "It’s very simple. His password is 5 star(*****)"

Bhushan was from Mechanical Branch and during those days non IT students usually didn't use to keep personal computers. But surprisingly during our 5th semester, Bhushan bought a desktop of his own. As expected, traffic to his room increased exponentially and Bhushan didn't like that much. One Sunday morning we were simply enjoying some kind of  chitchat at Bhushan’s room and Bhushan was getting ready, as he had to go somewhere. I asked for his password which he denied and asked us to leave, as he had to lock his room. I switched on his computer but couldn't log in. I tried few wild guesses but neither of them worked. I thought to have some fun and simply reduced the contrast and brightness of his monitor to minimum and the screen went totally dark and blank. Nair was also with me that time and I asked him not to tell Bhushan anything about it and came back to my room. 

After sometime, when Bhushan realized that there’s something wrong with his computer, he got very serious and immediately asked Nair "Abbe Madrasi, Kya kar diya mere computer ko? What the hell have you done to my computer?" 

Nair replied that he didn’t even touch his computer.

Bhushan replied "Zaroor us MC, Jahid ka kaam hoga, I'm sure Jahid would be behind this"

Bhushan came to my room and screamed "What have you done to my computer? I have to leave now, please rectify it immediately"

I replied "I haven’t done anything. You never shared your password and how could I do anything without logging into the system?"

Bhushan was not at all happy with my reply and went back to his room, murmuring something. Nair also had some good time with him and even suggested few bizarre  kind of reasons for the issue with his computer. Out of frustration, Bhushan came to my room for the second time and warned me about the dire consequences if I would have had done anything wrong with his system, but my reply was the same. The drama continued and after sometime I almost forgot about the incident and enjoyed some music in my room. After about almost two hours, Bhushan suddenly came to my room and he looked very happy and said "What you had thought? I’m not a Computer Engineer, so I wouldn’t be able to know what you did to my monitor."

I replied "So, ultimately you got to know. Who gave you the solution? It must be Nair?"

Bhushan gave his usual weird kind of smile and said "Samajhta kya hai be? Tereko kya lagta hai ki mujhe kuch nahi pata?  What you guys think? That Bhushan is an ass hole?"

Momo

Momo’s might have traces of its originality in Tibetan regions, but it’s one of the most popular dish in the entire North East India. Steamed momos are extremely delicious and one can fill them with any minced meat of their choice. Even though Veg momos are also available and some people do eat them, but frankly speaking they really sucks. Momos are intensely magical with minced pork, but the meat could be quite controversial for many of us. But one don't have to worry much, as even with chicken also it’s quite yummy.  

Momos were more than just a food for many of us. I think it was more of a kind of addiction, as during our college days we didn't have to think beyond momos, whenever we used to go to the city, specially for some evening snacks. In Guwahati one would find Momo restaurants in almost every corner and in any part of the city. We can compare Momo with Dosa out here in Bangalore, well only in terms of availability. Even though there are few highly recommended Momo restaurants in Guwahati, but now a days whenever I use to visit that place, I just go to any random restaurant and totally rejoice at every place.

Our hostel was at outskirt of the city and the college bus used to go to the city after every hour. The evening bus was mostly very overcrowded and on the way we usually used to ask our friends from different hostels "Hey Dude! Where are you going?"

Most of the time the reply used to be "Nothing, just want to have some Momos"

Some of the guys were too lazy to give a long reply and they usually used to smile and simply replied "Momo" Short and sweet, isn't it?

Momos are usually served with a fiery chili and tomato chutney. Some restaurants even used to give complimentary soup and that almost felt like a Diwali bonus. We usually used to have momo at the famous "Momo Ghor", but some of my friends say that the place has lost its reputation now a days. During our college days they used to charge Rs 18 per plate and most of us used to have one plate and 2 extra pieces and the total bill used to be Rs 25. After having one plate and 2 pieces, we usually used to skip dinner at hostel. But some of my friends used to have 2 full plates and some even three plates. 

Momo is highly addictive, just like Old Monk. If you try Old Monk for few successive sessions, no other brand would be able to satisfy your quench. Similarly if you try Momo as an evening snack for few days, definitely you wouldn't be attracted to any other snacks after that. But you have to be little careful, as gulping excessive momos on a regular basis, that too for a prolonged time, would yourself make you look like a momo.

The Discovery Of a Metalhead

Before joining engineering college, my association with music was limited to Bryan Adams, MLTR, Eagles, Bollywood stuffs and yes, also with some of those pop shits that they used to play on MTV. In hostel we used to hear diverse range of melodies from all different rooms, but particularly it was predominated by Bollywood songs, rock and metal music, with negligible amount of pop stuffs. Even though I was in some sort of metal environment, but never took it seriously until one particular evening. 

Immediately after the ragging days, the entire fresher’s came to their true forms. The cigarettes switched hands very frequently and the heavenly fluids already started to purify the blood inside our body. Most of the hostel rooms were already blessed with music systems and everyone really enjoyed to play the music  little louder. Sabine was a metalhead and we didn’t know him quite well that time, as he joined hostel just few days before the fresher’s night. That particular evening, few of us simply strolled through the hostel campus and encountered Sabine on the way. We planned to go out to buy some cigarettes and Sabine wanted to go to his room first. I think that was for the first time I visited his room and as soon as we entered the room, Sabine switched on the music system and my goodness, terrible kind of noise started to come out the speakers, as if it was about to burst in a while. Someone asked "What the hell are you playing dude? Please change the music"

Being a die hard metal fan, Sabine got depressed with those words. He then tried to explain us about the beauty of metal and about the spirituality behind it. He gave us metal gyaan for the next 10 to 15 minutes and finally he asked us to do something. He switched off the lights and asked us to lie down on the bed. There was complete darkness inside the room and then Sabine switched on the music system.  He asked us to close our eyes and feel only the music, as if nothing else existed in this world. Sabine increased the volume and what the hell? I was enjoying it, I was really enjoying it. He played some of the classic Metallica tracks that evening in loud volume and I listened to them with both my eyes closed. Couldn't realize how the noise turned into melody for me. It pleased my ears and relaxed my mind and body to a great extent. 

After that evening, something happened to me. I felt quite happy and confident, as if I was in love.  It started that time and the bonding became stronger and stronger day by day. In fact, no other kind of music soothed me that time other than those metallic melodies. The entire four years passed so fast listening to Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Black Sabbath and many more. Those days on every gathering and especially after the influence of heavenly fluids, hostel metalheads usually used to play video CD’s of the Metal Gods performing live on stage. Watching them we used to discuss and wondered "How it would feel to watch them live, to be part of such a concert?" 

Someone usually used to reply "Forget it, there’s no way we could experience them live in India" It felt bad but we had to believe the fact. But the world is really becoming smaller and smaller day by day. Years later, I think it was early 2007 and I was working out here in Bangalore. I got the news that Iron Maiden was coming to Bangalore for a concert. I was totally shocked and extremely delighted with that news. I just couldn’t believe even after I bought the tickets. That was some kind of a concert, totally mind blowing and out of the world. 

The crowd was extremely huge, as metalheads not only all over India, but all across the sub continent were at Bangalore that night. For the first time I witnessed something like that, some 50 thousand fans and most of them dressed in black. When they played the famous track "Fear of The Dark", my goodness it was magical and I couldn't hear Bruce Dickinson's voice at all, as the entire crowd was singing altogether. That particular concert changed the entire metal business in India and since then, hell lot of metal bands from all over the world performed out here in Bangalore. Few of my other memorable concerts were that of Metallica, Sepultura, Megadeth, Cradle of Filth, SuidAkrA and Amon Amarth. At present I'm just waiting for tomorrow's Bangalore Open Air, yes Saturday 6th of July 2013.

The Gourmand

Ragging phase was over and every one of us already connected pretty well with the seniors. By that time, we accustomed to the hostel environment and particularly the hostel food, in fact we raised ourselves up to the level where we could easily tighten our tummy with hell lot of rice, that too merely with some boiled potato and dal. Well, that was our usual kind of hostel mess condition during the last week of every month. We noticed that some of the seniors quite often used to enjoy some extra delicacies, like for instance some of them used to ask the hostel cooks to fry their share of boiled potato with some onion and green chili. Wow! My mouth is already filled with water, that thing was so damn tasty. Few of the seniors used to keep egg in their rooms and sometimes used to ask the cook to make omelet for them. Sometimes the seniors used to contribute few bucks in a group to buy chicken from outside. They used to ask the cook to prepare something really out of the world for them. As expected, such groups usually used to have late lunch/dinner on that particular day/night. First semester guys usually didn’t dare to demand special delicacies and satisfied themselves with the regular meal. But whenever the dining hall was free of seniors, even the first semester guys also used to shout “boil alu fry, boil alu fry, I want boil alu fry”

We used to have one senior Shashank Da, in our corridor and pretty close to our room. He was quite huge and used to enjoy most of his time with himself. We didn’t see him partying interacting much with the other hostel guys. He was the kind of character with whom neither his batch mates, nor even his seniors dared to take unnecessary panga, kind of argument. I still remember his laugh, as whenever he used to laugh the ceiling and the walls of the room seemed to shake a bit. By that time we didn’t know much about him and the only thing we knew is that he had an ultimate passion for food. One morning after jogging, please don’t misunderstand us to be that active, jogging was mandatory for the entire fresher’s during the ragging period. After jogging the dining hall was filled with the fresher’s and special puri sabji was served in breakfast during the entire ragging days and everyone used to have a good "eat count" of puri’s. 

One fine morning Shashank Da was also having breakfast with us and we’re not at all surprised to see his consumption rate. Shashank da encouraged all the fresher’s to eat more puri’s and then all of a sudden, one of us dared to ask him how much puri he usually used to consume. He became quite shy that moment and replied "Now a days I can’t eat much, my tummy becomes completely full with just 30-35 puri’s. When I was a fresher, I used to eat 60-65 puri’s"

One afternoon, I and Nair were just about to go for lunch and Shashank Da called from behind "Hey! Are you guys going for lunch?" We replied yes and he asked us to wait for a while, as he also wanted to go with us. We saw Shashank Da was holding 6 eggs in his hand and we were quite happy and expected a delicious lunch that day. I was very much delighted and thought "Wow! each of us would have double omelet today" We all sat in the same table and the hostel boy already served us the regular meal. Shashank Da asked the guy to prepare omelet out of the 6 eggs. I was eating little slowly and was about to shift gears once the omelet was prepared. A little later we saw that the hostel boy arrived with an extremely huge single piece omelet and kept it beside Shashank Da. The smell was mesmerizing and within a short while 50% of the omelet was already disappeared from there. After some more time Shashank Da asked us "Would you guys like to taste it?"

Nair replied "It's OK. It’s fine, we're almost done with our meal"

Later we got to know Shashank Da little more closely. Besides being a foodie, he was also a remarkable cook. He was an extreme kind of non-veg fan and experimented with every possible flesh. Whenever he wanted to have meat, most of the time he used to cook by himself and never got satisfied with anything below 1 KG. His daily requirement was much different from the other guys and everyday he used to have some special food, along with the usual hostel stuffs. It didn’t took us longer to realize that in order to maintain such kind of a lifestyle, that too in a hostel with abundant number of food desperado’s all around, Shashank Da must had to be little shameful and there was no other alternative for him. But sometimes even he was quite generous enough.