It is a beautiful day...

Getting over with exams gives this hazy feeling of elation. Hazy ‘coz you have not slept properly for a couple of nights in the row and are incapable of thinking or even feeling clearly. Now if you wonder about the expression of ‘feeling clearly’….well that is a straight validation of the previous statement.

It was 10.10 a.m. on a cool Sunday morning when I was set free of Trimester IV (Subject to my clearing Marketing Research paper).

Still dizzy, I mechanically asked a few people about their paper, cursed a few people, smiled at some others and headed back to my cozy room no. 607. Made a futile attempt of catching some sleep and finally got up, took a shower, had a bite. Meanwhile, I was told that I am going for “Pyar ke side effects”. Mind you, I was aware of only “Exams ke side effects” till then. (Here, I talk of status messages on Gtalk and Orkut….quite a war of the words there, will cover that in some post sometime. Now FYI, I am a skeptical consumer of modern Hindi cinema, keeping my eyes and ears closed to new releases till critical acclaim rises to a loudspeaker level)

So, I and Jellicle Cat picked up Pink Panther. Primarily because he had the tickets! I got some dirty looks for getting the two of them late for the movie but when a lioness has to get ready, she has to get ready.

Finally zig zagging through the choked Erla market, S.V. Road (On the butt of a bus, an ad for cold relief tablets read ‘Is your nose choked like S.V.Road? Try Coldie Gonnie’) and the flyover we reached SunCity, a ‘not worth 90 bucks multiplex at Vile Parle, East’. The rest of the gang was awaiting the arrival of lioness and the pack.

I would not get into reviewing the movie ‘coz it is simply not worth it. What it is worth, is to go with a gang, have a few laughs in the hall and come back. No more, no less. Only noteworthy point is the way Mumbaikar Delhite nonk jhonk has been captured. That struck a chord immediately. Now, did I mention the presence of dimpled ageing hunk of the name Jas Arora. I am sure, I must have!

From there the hungry girl gang decided to find a ‘sasta, uttam and tikau’ restaurant. After shooting down Brio (aha, what garlic bread, what butter croissant…), Subway and Pizza Hut; we agreed to ubiquitous Shiv Sagar. (sigh)

45 minutes later, post Palak Dosa, I reminded Jellicle Cat, Powerpuff girl and Bins that we are 20 pastries (10 steps X 2) away from Spar, the chic supermarket. (Being in Juhu, you get to bump into Vivek Oberoi and likes at Spar) Once there, it took me no time to take my pick of the day, but rest of the women seemed to be on eternal diet.

The next important question was the attire for Dandiya Night, scheduled to start at 7.30 p.m. I am sure, at this point the male readers will form this 5 letter word in their minds…‘women’.

Back to the cozy, inviting room which lulled me to a two hour of sound sleep. Alarms. Phone calls. Intercom. Damn. Exams are over for god sake!!!

Dandiya was as big a disaster as I expected it to be. Since there are hardly any Gujaratis in my batch, most of us were clueless on what to do with those sticks. Here my dear friend Woolly Mammoth would differ for sure. After all, you could poke some insects in the eye with those sticks. By the time the party ended, Dandiya Night had seamlessly transformed into a jam session.
In fact some of the French chicks…err, the exchange program students, learnt dandiya steps much faster than I could. So we can safely say that it was such a disaster.

Back in the room, armed with my laptop and a Ruskin Bond, I had some “Maggi Atta Dal Noodles – Sambar Style’ which was not bad at all. Especially, if you consider from a hostler’s point of view. At 2.30 a.m. though, my book and laptop were precariously perched on my 2.5 foot bed which now had me wanting to stretch. Off they went, to their respective places (Which means, laptop topped with the book, on study table- struggling to get a foothold in a territory firmly occupied by miscellaneous urchins. Mumbai surely has grown on me.)

Woke up at 2. 30 p.m. to the music of rain pattering on the tin roof of slum, close to my balcony. That moment, I knew it was a perfect day to go to Bandstand. It was Happy Dusshera, Shubho Bijoya, and a dry day (Oct. 2). And it was raining!

So, after feasting on some delicious delhi-like alu parathas from Kanteen, we got our rain gear out (Read: black shirts). And by the way, “What ARE umbrellas?” :-)

Flooded S.V. Road evoked a few curses. Almost soaked, we reached Bandra Fort. Now I was confused, was it not supposed to be a sea side ruin of a ‘Fort’? The building seemed more like Bandra Court. Yea, yea…my mistake, I should have asked autowalah to take me to ‘Quila’ not a Fort.

By the time we reached Quila, it was a twilight zone and I found Taj staring at us. It was quite humbling a sight and it seemed like a wise decision to a more plebian (and better lit) band stand. Only if I had not asked an autorickshaw driver to take us to Bandstand!! It was right behind the autowalah!!! But it was night already and everything looks strange at night. It does. It does.

A relaxed stroll with a dear friend, on the rocky shore with waves crashing against rocks, cool breeze and drizzle caressing the skin….how does that sound! It was as beautiful as it could get.

As we munched on hot, spicy buttered green chana, which incidentally was quite good, the need for a hot cup of cappuccino was evident. We recalled seeing a Barista and CCD on that road and as we kept walking towards the now non-existential Barista, J Cat noticed a shady character following us. She remembered seeing him at different spots during last 20 minutes. It was an instant Delhi panic. We suddenly realized that road was almost empty, there were almost no women and a lot of urchins were loitering about.

It took us around 60 seconds to find and board an auto to Linking Road. Found refuge in a Barista. With AC chilling the spine and coffee warming the innards, a feeling of relief spread over me and I almost ignored the fact that coffee was not that hot, tissue papers were not given to us and that there was no trace of caramel in my caramel coffee. I say almost because at the end of it, we filled up the suggestion/ complaint form.

Since we were at linking road and the gawdy display of bags was attractive enough, it was our duty to do some window shopping. After buying a pair of pretty earrings from Shoppers’ Stop we realized we were too hungry to continue.

Since we had exhausted our resources for location of Hersche’s earlier in the evening, we decided to go to one of my favourites – Kailash Parbat, Andheri.
(Rum Tum Tugger’s Review of Hersche's: It is a GREAT place for pastries and snacks and is GREAT V4M too. Now even if discount that statement by usual measure of 66.6% and add Woolly Mammoth’s objective review to it, it is supposedly a great joint)

Koftas with rich gravy of cashew and raisins and masala cheese naan. And piping hot gulab jamuns as a grand finale. Heaven. Where else do you get piping hot gulab jamuns in Mumbai without especially requesting to warm them up!

At 10.50 p.m., began our race to meet an extremely stupid deadline. And that we did with panache. And that’s where two great days ended. ~smile of satisfaction~

Papa don't preach!

As an essential part of my PG, guest faculty has been delivering 'gyan' to us on practial aspects of business (pun intended).
Now, many of these have been marketing honchos, big wigs of advertising agencies, esteemed corporate houses. Most of them by self admission have great interest and abilities in areas of people behaviour, segmentation of markets, studying cultural patterns and psychographics. Not to mention that they are good orators as well.
And one of the lessons I invariably tend to receive is, "do not take things for granted, do not be presumptive. Opening up the mind, opens door to opportunity."
However, they also invariably address us as a class of 21-22 year olds, fresh out of grad schools, some of us having wrokex. Oh, and the fatal one is the assumption that we all are Mumbaikars, localites!
In reality, the average age of my batch would be 24+, 72% has workex and at max 15% would be localites. Now, is it so ki "hamari twacha se hamari umar ka pata hi nahin chalta"...or is it ki 'haathi ke daant khane ke aur, dikhane ke aur' .

Candy is dandy...

A few days back, had a sip of port wine a friend got from France . My second sip of liquour in the lifetime!!! Supposedly, wine is tastiest of all...and it was the most bitter liquid i have ever tasted, with a rotten smell!!

My narration of that experience to a close friend was met with roaring laughter. 'Sweetheart, that's the way people start, that's the way i started....' was the underlying message I heard.

I think i am happy, taking Ogden Nash's 'Candy is dandy but liquour is quicker' on face value!

Part I - Getting there

It is a ritual. It is extremely impotant in this phase of my life. In total I spent some 100 plus hours in getting there. And result of it has not added more than 50 hour worth of value to 240 hours of mine in last one month. Any guessess!!! Yoah, me talking about summers.

Getting a summers in the company of choice, at stipend of choice, location of choice and a profile of choice (Note, note: PRofile comes last in my list) is a tough ballgame, as any of my b-school fellas would agree.

The flurry of activity which lasted a few months, made the process, for some of us who rolled from company to company, a painful drill. Ya, ya my college is not an IIM, so we still have a rolling summers process! (sigh)

Here is how it went... So, I would dress up in formals, read up a bit on info sent to me by the Infohub Cell and reach the right class room in time. Only to find out that venue has shifted or the company is 30 minutes late. So, smartly I would take out my Business World and start browsing. After all time management is one of 'b school' thingie. So I flip pages, no one in sight, I read two articles, a few more batchmates roll in. I finish the mag and ppt is yet to start! I think about the class which i was supposed to attend and wonder if that would have been more productive. Dismissal of that though happens a microsecond later... So I go through the ppt. Wait. Go through the first round of G.D.. Look for familiar faces. Go through case study round. Pace through the room. Go through management game. Grab a bite. Go through interview. Notice my now crumpled shirt.
And then walk back to hostel. Exhaused and cursing the company. If they had to take fresehers finally, why on the earth did they drag me right up to interview stage and wasted some 8 -9 hours of mine. After 6 of such drills, i was close to banging my head on the wall. Why me, god? Why me? Why did i work for some years before i got into a b school... Damn!

Love at first sight

The moment I say, “I love band stand”, I get these ‘I Know why’ smiles from people. For those who have been to band stand, the rocky sea face in Bandra reclamation, band stand is synonymous with a beeline of couples cozying up, even in broad daylight.
However, my love affair with Band stand started the same week of my landing in Mumbai. Having spent most of my life in Delhi, sea side in Mumbai was a natural attraction, so when my niece took me to band stand, I was mesmerized. Mind you, Band stand was like this awkward, reserved boy who did not know how to present the best foot forward, as it was a sunny, still afternoon with nothing romantic about the place, but as I sat on the rocks with waves crashing against the shore, I knew this is the place I would love. I dreamt of the time I would have, sitting there alone, with my hair thrown back by cool breeze and sun setting on the horizon.
And band stand did not disappoint me!! As my local guardians stay quite close to band stand, I have been there in morning, and like a typical hostler, have been there at 11 in the night. The best was when I went there after July 26 havoc last year. The sea was its high, there was a fine mist in the air, the breeze was almost cold, tingling me as goose bumps rose as response and then it started raining, The rendezvous I had that day still lingers …
Ten months down the line, having visited Juhu, Silver, Chaupati, Aksa, Alibagh, Marine Line and other sea faces, the affair still continues. While Juhu and Chaupati are picnic spots with more people than I can bear as acceptable, Aksa is a beautiful but dangerous beach with infamous quick sand and reported cases of at least 2- 3 deaths every year. And Marine lines with its beautiful Queen’s necklace view and posh location has really dirty water at the shore and then you can not dip your feet in water! So half the experience is lost. All you do there is sit on the wall and look at the sea. Alibagh with its secluded beaches and no high rise buildings to spoil the view has its merit but traveling by a public transport takes a toll on you if you have made a single day program. Silver, the one closest to my hostel is a cleaner, quieter beach than Juhu and I have been going for evening walks during my summer training, but it is no substitute. So, all in all, I long to be at bandstand and jump at the mention of going there. The fate teases me too. My visits are restricted to once or twice a trimester.
Off late, especially after a month of to and fro to Kandiwali East, I have reached adecision. If I were to stay in Mumbai, it would have to be Bandra with no more than 10 minute distance to Band stand! The separation and suffering would reduce, I hope…