My Days in Mumbai

Life Sux

2006-06-20T12:01:00.000+05:30

Things are a bit odd here. I wanted to leave this job. I am leaving it. I wanted to go to the USA for higher studies. I am all set for it. My mom was damn worried about her current ailment. Thankfully she is now almost fine. My brother had a good 4^th semester exam so technically he is a half-engineer. My dad is doing well. And so are my friends. You know, things are all falling in place. And that’s what makes my feelings so odd. I am sad, unbelievably but true. And I don’t know why. I am just down. Down with a strange kind of feeling I can’t put in words. There are times when I don’t know what to do with myself.

If you are reading this, I would like to know whether you have ever been in such a situation, when everything is apparently alright (may be remarkably good) and still you can’t but feel miserable, when an overwhelming feeling of ‘Life Sux’ engulfs you at a perfect party time.

Anniversary

2006-06-14T20:17:00.000+05:30

I should have made this post a week back; anyway, I will do it now. The 6^th day of this month marked the anniversary of joining my first job. 6^th June 2005, I had joined the company. I was happy to join.

The 8^th day of this month marked the day of my first resignation. I am happier to leave. When I joined I didn’t expect the world, but definitely I expected more than what I got. I won’t whine about it all together again. But the work was a mess, no doubt.

Still there are things that I gained in this one year. Some of them I will treasure for the rest of my life –

A new bunch of friends. I refuse to tag them with the rather serious sounding term of ‘colleagues’.
A computer language called ‘Java’ which I knew existed but never learnt more than that it exists. (Don’t misinterpret it as declaring myself a Java expert; I am only much better off when compared to my earlier self.)
A novel experience of sharing apartment with people. Being in a hostel or being at home is different. A tip here; don’t stay with too many people, don’t stay with too few. 2-3 is optimum I think.
A city – Mumbai
A blog - http://mumbaidays.blogspot.com/
A website - http://geocities.com/intro_to_multimedia/
An unexpected title of CS God. (CS = Counter Strike). Don’t laugh -:)
An insight into how companies work. No elaboration will be entertained in this section.
A piece of knowledge – communication skills are just too important for your work to neglect even if you are doing technical work.
A new sense of enthusiasm for study. I think I am more motivated for a PhD than I was while leaving IIT.

Top Doubts

2006-06-12T19:18:00.000+05:30

Top doubts relatives had when they learnt that I am going for a PhD –

4> how can you do a PhD without doing a masters?

3> is your company sending you on a study leave?

2> is IIT sending you for higher studies?

1> people study for getting a job; why are you going back to school leaving a job?

Visa Interview

2006-06-09T16:49:00.000+05:30

This is what the conversation was –

(VO = VISA officer)

VO: So you are working with this XXX Company, how much do you earn monthly?

ME: The package is YYY amount.

VO: What did I ask you? Tell me how much you get monthly?

ME: told her the approx figure.

VO: Why did you choose UIC?

ME: good univ, good infrastructure, profs working in my area of interest

VO: Why PhD, why not MS?

ME: more interest in doing research work.

VO: Why are you interested in doing research?

ME: I like the subject, want to do an in-depth study.

VO: Which is the highest degree you have received?

ME: BTech in Electrical Engineering

VO: Which college?

ME: IIT, Kharagpur

VO: Show me your degree & marksheet

(gave those to her, she had a look and immediately returned the degree certificate and was studying the marksheet.)

VO: Did you pass in first division?

ME: Yes.

VO: How many univs did you apply to?

ME: Only this one.

VO: Why just one?

ME: again similar as why I chose UIC, told that I had communication with my advisor, he encouraged me to apply etc.

VO: Is Prof. Z sponsoring you?

ME: No, the univ has given me an assistantship.

VO: You told me that you are so much interested in research and now you are telling me that you applied to only one university. Why so?

ME: I had to repeat things I had said before. I emphasized that the research work going on is very focused on my area of interest & also the prof was interested considering my past credentials.

VO: It looks like you are using this opportunity only to enter US.

ME: I tried my best to convince her that I was really interested in the research.

VO: What do you want to do with what you will study there?

ME: I want to join one of the IITs as faculty.

VO: What did I ask you?

ME: what I want to do.

VO: I asked what you want to do in you research?

ME: I told her keeping it to simple English, as simple as possible.

VO: Sorry, I didn’t get you.

ME: So I started with more basic things and tried my best to explain.

VO: You are so much interested in your research but you can’t even explain what you are going to do?

ME: (I didn’t know how to explain power electronics better to someone who asks questions to people thorough a small window all day, know nothing related to electrical engineering, can’t make out whether I passed in first division or not after looking at the mark-sheet for 30 seconds, and if you have any doubt, the mark-sheet was in English) Still I had to say blah … blah … blah…. and more blah… blah … blah….

VO: You are working in Mumbai. Why don’t you do your higher studies there?

(Do you know why the VO sits behind a window? So that people can’t slap them!!)

VO: (before I could start explaining why I am not doing my PhD in Mumbai) %&^%$@#&^%^#^% &$&@# &$*# *&$@(*# @$*Y (*$@

And gave me the documents back.

I couldn’t make out her last sentence. Only thing I knew was that she had kept my passport and that meant I had got my VISA. I went out, collected my mobile from the counter and sent SMS to all on my contact list.

The Double Blow

2006-05-16T19:45:00.000+05:30

One of my wingies made a post, titled ‘A Year’ with a year-old treat photograph and all the memories came rushing back. Getting ourselves packed in the cars, people rushing to avoid traveling with CS guys :D not ready to share their relentless PJs, a stop at the wine shop, ex-VP insisting on white rum, the open atmosphere at GI, the familiar staff always happy to receive us confident of making a good sale, starters and Daaru and the food and people giving their comments on others and taking group photos and someone joking over DJ, the hotel guys hiding the bottles because there was an inspection, the waiter getting confused about ‘chow’ and well, a whole lot of things.

It was a lot of sentu already. What makes things worse is my imminent goodbye to the current job. Leaving a job shouldn’t be like this, it requires being a lot more professional. But then it wasn’t a job as it should have been. The relationships made were more friendly than job-like. Instead of forging adult-like job relations, instead of keeping it limited to half-hearted wishes, instead of keeping a customary concern for others more out of duty than out of heart, we indulged in college-like frenzy. We dined and hanged out, went for movies, had nonsense discussions, made fun of each other, grouped to make small talk, celebrated birthdays with bumps and found occasions to fight over petty things. Totally unprofessional, you see. Now is the time to pay for it. As long as I was busy with the applications and visa documents, I remained blissfully unaware of the farewell at hand. Now that I am a bit free, the feelings keep pushing up the throat sometimes. I have to go, and with time I will adjust with a new place, new people and I know that. But then after spending almost twenty-four hours everyday for the past one year with these people it won’t let me go so easily without taking its episodic emotional tolls. The harder you have tied the knot, the harder it will hurt when it breaks. The bad part about life is that the knots always do break, sooner or later.

Moving to USA, if everything goes well

2006-05-11T20:39:00.000+05:30

Well! May be, you know it already. My blogging frequency reaching its nadir yet again, scraping in orkut has proven to be a much faster mode of conveying updates from my side.

The news is that I have got a scholarship for PhD in Electrical Engineering at University of Illinois, Chicago staring Fall, 2006. The final official impediment still remains, getting a visa. Some people boosting me saying there is never a problem with a F-1 visa but then I always get to hear these snippets from here and there complaining someone or someone’s friend or someone’s brother was denied a visa because of some silly reason. No matter what, I have to face it. I got the I-20 yesterday, will take a visa interview date soon.

Why Reserve Seats?

2006-04-12T10:47:00.000+05:30

I sometimes wonder whether some politicians have the minimum sense of ethics left in them or is it just the issue of the vote bank that has wiped out every shed of their dignity, if they had some?

If you realized that yet another blogger is going to take up the issue of reservation in the educational institutions, you are absolutely right. I know that there is already a lot of hue and cry regarding the matter; still I want to make my contribution in the discussion. I generally don’t analyze events or political decisions, but the issue is just too irritating not to make a comment on.

Why is the figure 49%? What is the logic? Arjun Singh has pointed out some Supreme Court ruling that makes the reservation legitimate. I don’t know about what the apex court had said, I don’t understand the legal intricacies but what I am sure of is that 49% of Indian people do not make up the backward classes. And if they don’t, what sort of reasoning led our minister to such a novel conclusion? Well, technically it’s not yet an official decision. But the hints were enough to decide which way our honorable minister is heading, or at least he is intending to.

Who really benefits from such a reservation? Definitely they are the SC/ST/OBC people but many of them are backward only in the paper. I have seen ‘underprivileged’ children of affluent doctors, engineers and officers walk away with a nice rank in JEE while some other friend of mine couldn’t clear the JEE altogether only because of holding a ‘privileged’ surname. But no complaints! This guy’s forefather once enjoyed the privileges; this is ‘payback time’!

That’s not always the case but it often is.

Is there really a need for reservation? Definitely, there is. But for people who are financially backward in this generation and not because someone’s great grandfather was a poor man. Why should I pay because of my great-great-grandpa refusing to touch yours when you wear the same brand of jeans I do?.

How long will we have reservations? An honest answer will be ‘always’. Reason – no politician will have the guts to propose a withdrawal, after all, the votes are all that matters. Prosperity or no prosperity, justice or no justice, I need to be in power and nothing else matters.

But such reservations are to make all people at par, well at least ideally. It’s to let the week people get a share of the pie so that next time he is strong enough to get some on his own. It’s not for making undernourished people sit and eat and eat no matter how overweight they get. There should be a limit to this ‘reservations’.

What can the limit be? There might be a time limit. Say another 10 years, 20 years or 50 years, but there has to be a limit. If someone can’t grab the opportunity and move up, one deserves being backward. And if the laws, instead of making fat people fatter, can look for real needy people, the plan might work. When we are giving all the privileges to the child of a doctor earning a lakh per month, we are missing out someone who actually needed that money.

If such a time frame is not possible, at least limit the level up to which someone enjoys ‘reservations’. If someone is ‘backward’ give him/her low-cost education, let him/her study all the way he/she is interested in but no reservation for competitive exams. You had a chance to study for free up to higher secondary level, now sit for the JEE on your own. You shouldn’t cry for minister uncle to push you up.

Gudi Padwa

2006-04-03T20:20:00.000+05:30

Though spring has ushered in a technically new season in Mumbai, there is hardly anything new in the weather. It’s all hot and messy. I sometimes doubt whether there is any other season in Mumbai barring summer and the monsoons.

Nonetheless the festival of Gudi Padwa, the local New Year marked on the first day of Chaitra, was celebrated with adequate zeal and vigor this year. It’s not a very showy kind of celebration. A rather low profile occasion compared to the noisy and long-drawn Ganapati Utsav. In fact, the only thing I actually experienced on the day was a break from the office (an unexpected and welcome one). However, the newspapers with all the snapshots and reports suggested that the people had celebrated the day in elegance. They also state that the younger generation was far less enthusiastic regarding the issue compared to the older generation. Young minds are more attached to boisterous discos of English New Year rather than a solemn celebration in keeping with the tradition. Well, I don’t blame them, I think young people have always been like that for ages, even those who make up the older generation today. What was rather odd and caught my eye on the papers was a bike rally organized in Navi Mumabi on the day of Gudi Padwa. What marks the peculiarity is the participation of ladies in the rally. By ladies, I mean serious-looking sari-clad women. I don’t know if there was some kind of message in the rally, but it definitely managed to stand out from the ones we often encounter, with bikes or otherwise.

(I was trying to find a photo of the rally, but can't find one on the web right now.)

Official Pastime

2006-03-27T20:05:00.000+05:30

With the new projects not properly outlined, old ones headed for a dump and the boss getting busy with his stuff, it was all free time in the office. (Can the posts in a blog be held against an individual in a legal processing? Hope not!) To use the time constructively I engaged in two means to feed my brain, luckily both turned out to be nice pastimes. Remember, not mere pastimes, it’s official.

1> If you haven’t checked out howstuffworks.com, pay a visit. They are explaining, well, how stuff works and the range of stuff is quite extensive. If you want to find out how stuff related to computers, science, people, entertainment, electronics or any-field-you-name work, go to the site and do a search. Do you know how a hair dryer works or a speaker or a telephone or a TV or an atomic bomb?

2> Next one was an old game rediscovered. Solving puzzles. Here are two of the best I encountered recently –

a. There are 12 balls exactly identical in shape, size and color but one is defective though whether it is lighter or heavier is not known. Find out the ball using a common balance (without weights) using minimum tries

b. A scientist has 1000 beer bottles. He will use those during a party scheduled one month from now. He comes to know that one bottle is poisoned. How can the scientist find out the poisoned bottle using minimum number of mice?
If a mouse is fed the poisonous beer, it dies after a month.

Will you try to solve the puzzles?

If you know the answers beforehand, don’t let the word out!

Back to Mumbai & Latest Update

2006-03-21T18:28:00.000+05:30

I had a nice little trip to Kolkata. It felt great to be at home. Since my father also managed to avail leave for a few days, the family get-together (me, my parents and my brother …… meeting all my relatives is a distant possibility) was complete. There wasn’t much to describe about the break. Not being Holi enthusiasts, we spent the day indoors. However, the celebration was at its high with all the family members sharing the dinning table and the delicious dishes after a long time. The relatives pestered me over the phone for not paying a visit. They complained of not getting a chance to meet me for long. Quite justified. But with the limited leave of seven odd days, I had little time to spare and decided to spend time with my family only. The pending ‘Puja’ days were alive at our house. I loved it.

Well to honour your right to information, I must tell you about the latest update. Today, I got the admission letter for PhD in University of Illinois, Chicago. The scholarship aspect is still hanging in mid air. Hope something works out soon.

Who can be my Lover?

2006-03-11T12:26:00.000+05:30

Dipanjan tagged me.

I will copy/paste (most used utility in computers, I suppose, makes life so easy) the rules from him –

The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover
You have to mention the sex of the target.
Tag 8 victims to join this game and leave a comment on their comments saying they've been tagged.
If tagged the 2nd time, there's no need to post again.

I have never given much thought about the qualities my perfect lover should have. Coming up with 2-3 points was easy but then it required a bit of brainstorming to meet the limit. My being single is not so much for my stringent criteria as it is for the lack of quantity that I have been exposed to, that too in a highly competitive situation (read IIT). I had once put down the criteria to get a girlfriend, and with quite some deliberation decided that I satisfied none of those. May be I will talk about those in the next post.

Well, now the points. And if you were in any doubt, the target sex is female.

Must have a minimum level of intellect. Actions and words should come through a filter called brain before getting their way out to the world. I can’t stand dumb people. This is the most important and only must-have criterion. As I am heading towards an arranged marriage with 99.99% probability, I am wondering how to guarantee that the person satisfies this point.
(This includes that the person doesn’t babble and laugh all the time.)
Should be alive and energetic. I have the tendency to become like those who are around me. Being with a dull partner will make myself dull.
Should be nice to talk with. Point one and two don’t always ensure this one. An intelligent and energetic person is not necessarily one you enjoy talking to. This requires wit, humor, basic knowledge and understanding of the everyday world, capacity to describe or analyze things and the very crucial one, interest to listen to what the other is saying.
Should have a sense of art, not so esoteric but more mundane like the sense of colours and designs. I am often at a loss while choosing garments or bed covers or anything for that matter that has an appeal to the aesthetic sense. I can’t decide what to give someone as a present on an occasion. I need a relief.
Should cook well. I am dying to have ‘ghar ka khana’ on a regular basis.
Should understand the importance of money.
Should understand my passions with work, not necessarily office work.
Should be decent looking. I really don’t care much about the look as long as the other criteria are matched and as long as it doesn’t go below a threshold.

As I don’t know whether it is a standard to tag unknown people and since Dipanjan has already tagged many of the people I know in blogosphere, I could tag only Varun, Jayanta and Suvro.

Updates from a Dormant Blog

2006-03-10T13:06:00.000+05:30

My enthu for blogging has given away to laziness as usual. However this one is still fortunate to survive(?) so far, the others died with less than five posts. If you are interested in statistics, here are the numbers of posts I made in this blog –

September 30th + October - 10
November - 5
December - 5
January - 4
February – 0

Pathetic!!
Well, what kept me from posting is largely my laziness, somewhat the lack of a computer at home. After the office hours, I don’t feel like writing and when I am fresh again at home, I don’t get the electronic gadget I require to blog.

No more useless words, let’s get to the theme – the updates from my side

Dipanjan tagged me to write about 8 different points of my perfect lover. That’s a lengthy question man! 8 points!! Essay-type question, you mean. I will answer soon. This tagging is a prime cause that I am back in the blogosphere.
Me going home tomorrow evening by an Air Deccan flight. These low cost carriers are changing the way people travel in India.
I have already applied and will apply to a few foreign universities for a PhD. I am waiting for a result. I haven’t thought beyond the applications. If I am not selected in any of them, I will have to rethink what I am going to do in the near future.
We are practicing austerity because of bird flu, still no chicken in the menu.
It rained for quite long yesterday bringing back the memories of last September. I want to leave Mumbai before the next monsoon. Mumbai in monsoons sux.
Deep and Shashi, two of the people who work with me in the office, (it sounds odd to call them 'colleagues', it sounds so formal) met with a bike accident. They are okay now but things could have been worse, I think. Deep better take care next time.
In office, we have got new projects. The old one is still on, but looks like the boss has lost interest in it.

That's all for now. I will be back with the tagging thing. Beware! I am going to tag 5 more!!

Trekking to Matheran, Hill Station near Mumbai

2006-01-31T19:36:00.000+05:30

We got to Panvel at around 7:30 in the morning. It was a small group of five guys. The next bus was due after an hour and a half, so we took a trekar (the larger version of an auto-rickshaw) to Dudani. It is a small village from where the trekking starts. It is a 2-3 hour trek given that you know the route. We didn’t.

So it was more of an exploration. We initially took direction from the local people but soon we had to decide a few turns on our own. We were quite happy to go along a path which looked like been used by humans in the recent past. But it was a shock when we were near the top and got stuck in a jungle. A dead-end. No other route emerged from there. So we had to climb down half the mountain. With a bit more of exploration and a lucky encounter with a local person, we crossed a dried stream and reached the main track. Well, it was a treat! I fall short of words to express how good it felt at that moment.

This part of the journey was even tougher. May be because of the steeper path or because we had already climbed up another mountain and was drained out. We used to go for 10-15 minutes at a stretch and then take rest for 5 minutes. The route at most places weren’t very dangerous. But at certain points you have to be very careful as you walk on a foot-wide strip of earth with the abyss running down hundreds of feet so close to you.

We reached Matheran four hours after we started. The point we reached was the ‘Sunset Point’. It was another half an hour walk to the central market of Matheran. We had a decent lunch and took rest in a nearby park. We also paid quick visits to some other points of Matheran. It is a nice hill station with gorgeous natural views. As no vehicles are allowed, there is little pollution. However the red soil is a problem as it gets all over your shoes and trousers.

We walked down to where taxis were available, got to Neral and reached Vashi by local trains. The journey was exhausting but the excitement and the beauty was far more rewarding than the toil.

On our way to Dudani

Dudani from a little height

Beware! Wrong Route!!

Lost in the Jungle

Finally on the right track

On our way to the top

Sunset Point (The trek ended here at 1:30pm)

Khandala Point

Echo Point

The Lake in Matheran

The Goa Trip (Part III)

2006-01-07T10:59:00.000+05:30

The bitter feeling last night had no trace left when we got up afresh next morning. We headed straight to Old Goa. We took our brunch in a restaurant just in front of the famous St. Xaviers church. The food was good; in fact, it was the only place in Goa where we enjoyed having food. We had a taste of Feni, the local drink of Goa. I don’t know whether it was because of the bad experience last night, but it tasted fairly good.

The St. Xaviers church having the body of the great saint preserved in a natural condition generates a great deal of attention resulting from both curiosity and devotion. We joined the crowd to visit the heritage place. We also paid a visit to the big newer church nearby and the museum displaying the relics found in Goa. Chiru, the tall fellow in our group, bought a Goanese hat, his heart’s desire for a long time.

Once done with the churches, we went on our way to see the Portugese fort. We had to wait another hour in the middle of our journey as the car ran out of gas. However, this delay was more of bliss. The location was cool, on the Panjim-Old Goa road. We enjoyed a great deal.

We reached the fort at around the middle of the day. The fort wasn’t of the Maharaja kind. It was meant mainly for functioning as a lighthouse and a water reservoir. But who cares for what it was meant for! The view from the top looking over a vast area of the sea with boats of all sizes hovering across was nice to watch. Guys of our group engaged in a photo session. The more enthusiastic ones took off their shirts to have a better macho look (of course, giving the excuse that it was too hot to wear anything).

Breaking off from the fort expedition, we took our way back to Mumbai. On our way, had another devastating session of putting food in our mouth. I refuse to call that a lunch or whatever you call the act of having decent food. May be people realized that our much-awaited trip was coming to an end and still a lot had not been done! As if to make up for the party we missed, we put party dance numbers in the car stereo and danced our way back. There wasn’t enough room to move the lower part of the body, but still it was a good dance. The trip finally came to an end as we reached our home at five in the morning.

The greatest achievement of the trip was the trip itself. We had planned for it and eventually had dropped it so many times, that finally reaching Goa to celebrate the New Year was a genuine accomplishment. Calangute beach was awesome. I have seen so many filthy beaches with hoards of people that the dark sea at Anjana was a welcome experience. Visit to Old Goa and the fort was also entertaining. If anything was still missing, the car-party on our way back ensured that I would remember the trip forever.

In Panjim

In the new Church

Where our car ran out of gas

View from the top of the fort

In the fort

The Goa Trip (Part II)

2006-01-05T19:09:00.000+05:30

Our next destination was the Tito’s, a popular disco in Goa. However this time it wasn’t going to be that smooth. The members of our team got separated in the crowd outside Calangut beach and just when it was required the most, the mobile network failed. Practically no call was going through or it was getting dropped almost as soon as it managed to get connected. After struggling for quite a bit we regrouped and went to the disco. Unfortunately it was full and to add to the misery, we had to waste more time as the car parking was about a kilometer away from the spot.

We headed for Anjana beach. After following quite a weird route through half-roads and fields, we reached what looked like a civilized area. A policeman told us to park there. We got out and a lady appeared out of nowhere to ask for a parking fee of 10/- rupees. We complied and set on our journey to the beach on foot. The policeman and the lady had suggested that it was only a few minutes walk, but when we got no sign of the beach even after walking for around ten minutes, we decided to cross check. To our utter dismay, we found that we were still off the beach by over 3 kilometers. As the mobile network was jammed we could not just ask the driver to take the car to us. We had to walk back. Shit!!

Anjana beach was a nice place. The crowd was less. The dark sea ahead with the rumbling sound of the waves crashing on the rocky beach gave quite a pleasant feeling. We took our dinner in a restaurant there. The brilliant location helped us to ignore the despicable food and service. People were somewhat depressed to celebrate the New Year eve on a shadowy beach. Do add some colour to the dark; we decided to go for booze. A few rounds of whisky with the foamy water touching your feet in a rhythmic repetition could have been good enough to forget all the parties going on. Alas! That was not what exactly happened that night. The booze we bought was crap. I do not know what it was but it tasted terribly bad and we gave up. The firework started at midnight and certainly was a good watch for all except for a band of boys whose midnight wasn’t actually what they had planned it to be. Guys got even more down in the dumps watching all the chicks coming out of a disco near-by. Remember the feeling of utter hopelessness “water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink”.
So the first day ended with a note of grief. However, you were soon to recover and enjoy a lot the next day.

Anjana Beach (Can u spot me?)

That is no E.T. That's Sardar in the Restaurant

The Goa Trip (Part I)

2006-01-03T20:12:00.000+05:30

We were planning for long, repeating the same old sequence of serious talking for a day and dropping it thereafter and taking up the matter again after a few weeks. In fact, we had talked and forgot about it so many times that nobody believed we were actually going to Goa until the Toyota Qualis picked us up at seven in the evening on 30th December.

We were eight odd souls in total, all working in the same group. We traveled all night to reach Goa at eleven in the morning. We lost a good one hour on our way because of a leaked tire. We spent that hour in a teashop placed in an otherwise deserted place surrounded by total darkness. The shop was playing a song of the movie ‘Nagin’ adding to its eerie atmosphere.

We got in a hotel near Miramar Beach. A nice bath, a good one-hour rest and a pathetic lunch in the same hotel are all that happened before we hit the road again. We went to the Miramar beach first. However, there wasn’t much in there and decided to go to the Calangute beach. Before even reaching the shore of the sea we were stumped by the sea of girls, Indian and foreign, floating all around us. That was fabulous!!

The experience in the beach, I think, was the best part of the tour. We had a ride on the water scooter, enjoyed a long bath in the waves and of course, relished the beauty both of the nature and the people. After having a good time of a couple of hours, we decided to move on.

In front of the hotel

Miramar Beach

Calangute Beach

Someone Got Bigger

2005-12-25T17:56:00.000+05:30

It was this Friday, the yearly auspicious day for me. My BirthDay. If you missed it, don’t worry. I am still accepting all kinds of e-gifts, e-cards, e-wishes and whatever e-thing you can manage to send me. Hardcopies are also welcome. Contact me for the exact address!!

The day began with a GPL at 12 midnights. Thanks to a meager number of enthusiasts, it wasn’t as bad as it used to be in the college. Mukund doesn’t morally support it and Deep, whose birthday was just the next day, refrained from it as a slight diplomatic move. The mobile served a great purpose giving my friends and family to pour in the tele-wishes from all over India. It always feels good to know that someone remembered your birthday. Thanks to all you guys.

There was a small cake-cutting ceremony in the office. Things went without much ado. I got a shirt as a gift from my colleagues, my only hardware gift L. Just kidding, the e- and tele- wishes were equally appreciated. And yes, I forgot to mention the orkut-wishes. They were huge in number. Mobile, email and orkut are the three greatest links to all my friends.

Today (25th December) is the treat day. Deep and I will be treating the people in my office at a restaurant in Vashi. If you are missing out, you can always come to Mumbai and claim your share.

Mumbai getting chilly

2005-12-21T20:59:00.000+05:30

The chill is finally creeping into the air of Mumbai. Mumbai doesn’t get a cold winter by virtue of its geographical location. Places near the sea go through only mild variations in the temperature over the year. Hope that brushes up your old school day lessons.

However now the people of Mumbai can enjoy a bit of the experience that the people of Delhi so bitterly loathe. Though it’s still hot with the sun up in the middle of the sky during the day, you can feel the chill once it starts getting dark. It doesn’t make you shiver or your teeth do not clatter but still you can sense that the winter is around. I personally hate getting too much cold. This slippery sensation of cold is the best that I enjoy. While some of my friends are out there in the freezing temperatures of Canada and the US of A, I enjoy being in Mumbai with its fleeting wintry days.

2005-12-14T20:22:00.000+05:30

Our Boss is away on a meet with a foreign company. We are observing a no-meeting week :). It feels good :D However, he will be back on Saturday and if you didn’t know, Saturday is a working day for us. Given the fact that the piece of job we have, is not quite working out, there isn’t much scope for us to jump and bounce in joy. So better get to the work.

I am sitting the Marathons

2005-12-10T19:58:00.000+05:30

Things get tricky sometimes. A few days back, most of the last week, our HOD was busy; too busy to remember that we exist. So there was no review meeting, no assessment, no communication at all for that matter. People were irritated to varying levels of indignation. Don’t count us among those workaholic fanatics. But then you expect your boss, if not to pat your back with a praise, at least to go through what you have done with some sincere effort. Well, apparently, as I mentioned earlier, he was damn busy to manage to do that. We believe him, the boss is always right.

As if to demonstrate the other extreme situation or may be to impress upon us the fact that he cares, he devoted a huge amount of time for us this week; too huge to cope with. The marathon meetings followed, some stretching over three hours at a stretch; some even more with a modest break of half an hour in between. As far the indication until now, the predicament is not going to be over soon.

It always starts with a call from his secretary asking all of us to assemble in the conference room. There is always some sort of urgency as all (barring one or two at the most) try to reach the room first just to secure a seat away from the chair of the meeting; the closer you are the more you are prone to get attacked. Hope you see the point. The meeting starts. People start discussing what they have done or what they plan to do. The boss pays full attention. You can never blame him of lending only half an ear to your story. Suddenly people realize that the process is getting boring and order some tea & coffee along with biscuits and chips for a change. No need to say that it is the best part of the game.

The eatables disappearing slowly (fast if the boss goes out for some time) and the drinks being sipped in a slower rate (since it is not in a public offering as the eatables are), people get finished with almost whatever they had to say. Now comes the turn of the big boss. Just as we are letting ourselves have a sigh of relief that this part of the work is over, the boss uses his ‘veto power’ (as we generally refer to it) to dismiss all of it (if you are lucky, you might manage a “partly right” status). So begin from scratch. However you can’t blame our boss to be harsh either.
“Well, XYZ, I think you have worked quite a bit in this regard but your model requires a few changes” – that is how he starts and goes on to change the whole of it in the name of giving a few tweaks and turns. By the time you leave the meeting, you realize that you have been given a turn of 540 degrees.

(PS – I must mention that our boss is quite smart in his suggestions. He does change our models a lot but those are not just for the sake of making changes to show off that he is the boss. The changes are quite appropriate.)

Moral of the story – Whenever you write something about your boss in a public blog, write something good, at least at the end, if you can’t place it in the main content.

Job Rediscovered

2005-12-01T21:22:00.000+05:30

I decided it was time to salvage my sinking blog. If I don’t act now, I might lose my blog for good. Well, I have a pretty good excuse for such a long break in posts and the brilliant reason is ‘WORK’. Yes, you got it right! Suddenly after over five months, I have got something interesting and worthwhile to do in the office. So there is no more coming to the office and wondering what to do next after checking the email. If you are interested to know what exactly I am doing, well, not much luck there. One thing very neat about the group I am working in is that whatever you do is confidential. You get a document, you find some data, you watch some presentation, no matter how useless it might seem to be, it is strictly no-no to share with anyone outside the group. The approach has a two-way benefit. The boss gives his juniors a feeling that they are doing something important (at least he thinks that he does) and the juniors give their friends a feeling that they are doing something important (at least they think that they do).

However, the situation right now looks promising. It doesn’t look like a project, which both the boss and the employees know to be bogus and know that the other party knows but still can’t announce it in public. So I am hopeful this time and the best part is that I am enjoying my work these days.

Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire

2005-11-22T19:32:00.000+05:30

Last Friday saw us in R Mall. It’s a huge shopping complex in Mulund with four floors and a large variety of stores to offer you thousands of items to buy. On the top floor are the Adlabs screens. We, in total twelve people, had bought our tickets through Internet. Sometimes I am overwhelmed with the measure by which Internet has made our lives simpler. Paying electric bills and credit card dues are so effortless and the best thing is that I no longer need to waste my time standing in long queues for a movie ticket or a railway reservation. So without much hassle, we were inside the hall.

The movie was pretty good. I got what I expected from a Harry Potter movie and undoubtedly (at least for me) it is the best Harry Potter movie made so far. It was also the best movie I have seen in the recent past (last few months). It was a relief in the realm of bogus Hindi films (expect a few, of course!).

The story was quite straightforward to understand. Given that I have not read the original book, you can count on that statement. However, if you don’t know anything more about Harry Potter except his name, you are not going to catch the whole of it. One of my friends was such an ignorant fellow. He didn’t even know that Harry goes to Hogwarts to study or anything for that matter related to the stories. By the time he understood the first scene*, the movie had already reached the interval -:) So if you haven’t read any of the books or watched none of the films, better get a crash course. Make sure that you know that someone named Lord Voldemort is the villain of the story.

If you are a crazy Potter maniac, you have already watched the movie, haven’t you? If you are in doubt, to watch or not to watch the movie, just book a ticket now. You will enjoy (remember you must be a Potter literate). If you hate Harry Potter, if you boast that you don’t watch movies made for kids, go to hell!

(* The first scene is a tricky one, don’t apply too much brain on that. You will understand its significance eventually.)

Killing Time

2005-11-20T18:05:00.000+05:30

If you thought that I was too busy or too lazy to make a post, you were wrong. It’s the lack of significant things happening in life that got me refrained from making new posts. As I had promised earlier not to make this blog a sentimental or a philosophical one, I was in desperate search for something happening. If I had to write a new post everyday describing what happened that day I will save my time by putting the post named “Back to Routine” in a while(true) loop. (The pattern of such computer language is adopted from my friend Dipanjan, however instead of while(1) I used while(true) because ….. well, you are left to guess the reason. If you can’t make out, you don’t know Java).

Have another look at the previous paragraph. That is what happens when you can’t find anything to write about and still make a post in your blog.

MTV Music Summit

2005-11-14T18:54:00.000+05:30

One of the enthusiastic guys in my office got hold of five free passes for the MTV Music Summit last Saturday. As one of the five people backed off at the last moment, I grabbed the opportunity to go along.

The program was scheduled to start at 6 in the evening. We were well before time, at around five, to secure a place considerably close to the main stage. As time passed the deluge of young faces poured in. By six, it was quite full, at least as far I could see. The show started with Cyrus Broacha and Nikhil appearing on stage and doing some funny stuff, which they continued, along with other MTV VJs, during the breaks. Yes, the AIDS awareness stuff was also very much there as the prime aim of the show was to promote the war against HIV.

Finally the main show began. There was some guy named Raghav (do I recall the name correctly? Well, I’m not sure.) who performed two songs and tried to create more awareness about his next album than AIDS. Certain other performers followed and it wasn’t even half an hour past when I felt like getting out of the mess. With each new song starting, people put their hands up in the air expectant of a thrilling number, only to put them down after a few seconds frustrated yet again with a rather dull song. That’s the best they could do. Did you expect them to dance? Well, there wasn’t just enough room for such luxury. However quite strangely the crowd still had enough energy and interest to shout and jump at the slightest provocation from the hosts or the camera focusing on them. If you happen to watch its video recording, you will feel as if the mass was jumping and waving their hands all through the show, while the truth is far from being so.

Reading so far, if you are thinking that it was all bogus, you are wrong. Sophie, the VJ who recently acted in the film Shaadi No 1, restored some charm to the show with a few good numbers. Next to follow were Avijit Sawan, Amit Sana and another person from their Indian Idol contest. They were good. The show got even better with Bombay Vikings and Strings notwithstanding occasional interruptions for AIDS campaigns, bad jokes from Cyrus & Co., the irritating Gulshan Grover and worst of them all, the long breaks for showing advertisements of the sponsors.

We left the show with around another half an hour more to spare in the show. Such a show will be an average experience for average people, neither too good nor too bad. Well, conditions apply – you should have enough physical tenacity to stand in an overwhelming crowd for over four hours sometimes not being able to move even an inch to relax your numbing limbs, you should be able to resist plucking your hair in frustration while they show you the same set of advertisements over and over again (be prepared for this if you are getting a free pass with the logos of sponsors printed on it), you should have enough zeal to shout whenever the host on the stage asks you to.

Back to Routine

2005-11-10T17:03:00.000+05:30

When you get up at around 8:30 in the morning, take your breakfast at 10:15 in the office, after checking the email for 10 minutes wonder what to do next, when you go for lunch at 1:30pm, while on your way to the food-court do a process of brainstorming to decide what to have in lunch and despite all efforts end up eating more or less the same food you have been eating for the last five months at lunch, when around 5:30 in the afternoon, you get ready for the office hour to be over only to be called to the discussion room for a two-hour-long meeting where the HOD gets to speak and you keep your mouth shut, when at 8:30pm you get back home (or whatever you call a flat where five poor souls exist between 8pm and 10am), change channels of the TV continuously without actually watching anything, eat up dabba food which changes its form and colour but somehow tastes very similar everyday and finally go to bed around 12 midnight, you know that you are back to routine.

Home Sweet Home

2005-11-07T17:20:00.000+05:30

It felt really nice to be home. After around a five-month stay in Mumbai, the weeklong break in Kolkata was a treat. One thing is clear – my fascination for Mumbai will take a long time to get even close to my love for Kolkata.

The 32-hour journey by Gyaneshwari Express from Kurla Terminus to Howrah rendered the rare occasion when I could speak in Bengali with someone face to face. The week at home wasn’t very eventful but still we enjoyed a lot. We have a custom of performing Laxmi puja on the day of Diwali. So no crackers! However the special kichuri (hotchpotch) with five types of fries on that day do compensate for the fun of the crackers. Or am I just too old for crackers? Either way, the puja went fine. The other days were marked with trips to Big Bazar, the near-by shopping complex or the local Satyajit Ray Park, meeting some old friends and also watching the ODIs between India and Sri Lanka. We feel a bit sorry for Sourav (Dada) not being there in the field. But if India can play so good in his absence, better be it this way. My father came home on Friday. So it was a family reunion after quite some time. My brother is in the 2nd year of his engineering studies. If he gets a job outside Kolkata, which is very likely, such a reunion, I am afraid, will be even harder and more rare. The saddest person on earth will be my mother for whom just our being home is the ultimate treat in itself. The world is pulling us apart. Yes, there are cell phones and emails but nothing is like being at home. I am not getting homesick. I just can’t put the right words to narrate the feeling. May be, if you are away from home busy with your duties and pleasures and get back home after a long time only to leave after a short period, and if you have someone as caring as my mother and someone as lovable as my little brother, may be, you will understand.

Hanuman

2005-10-24T14:52:00.000+05:30

As no other more serious movies were released in the near-by halls, we decided to watch ‘Hanuman’ this weekend. It is an animation movie depicting the life of Hanuman from his birth to the conquest of Lanka. The animation quality was pretty good. I liked the music too. As goes the story, it is all that you already know. There isn’t any scope for an innovative story line when you are making a film based on the oldest epic tale of the world.

The director did a good job in selecting the portions relevant to the life of Hanuman and didn’t make an attempt to portray the whole of the Ramayana. However even after his judicious assortment, the volume of stories was rather heavy for the two and a half hour span of the movie. After all it was more or less the same story that Ramanand Sagar stretched for over four years!

I must admit that the animation quality, though good, wasn’t at par with the Hollywood releases. However, it was overall a good experience to watch such a film. It is a must watch for kids; but the adults will enjoy it too.

Cell Phone Missing

2005-10-22T15:00:00.000+05:30

The regular life experienced a jerk the day before yesterday. Mukund, who shares the room with me, lost his mobile phone. Well, he didn’t lose it; it was stolen. That too not in a bus or a train, it was stolen right in our room from the plastic shelf placed between our beds. He had switched off the mobile at night before going to sleep. So we could not just make a call and locate it using its ringtone, if it was still in the room hidden somewhere. An energetic pursuit for the cell followed. All beds were turned around, all bags and shelves checked and re-check but when nothing was of any luck, the theft was confirmed. Mukund was looking in such a mess that if one of us was playing a prank, he would have returned it by the time the search was over and no hope was left.

After quite a good amount of brainstorming, all the suspicion fell over the maidservant. It was unlikely for a normal thief to take a cell phone from one of the bedrooms when watches and cell phones were lying unattended in the drawing room. Moreover it was guaranteed that the theft was made in the morning (when the maid generally comes) since two guys were up till 5am watching soccer matches. So as the situation and Mukund’s wrath demanded, the maid was fired.

However that doesn’t get us any closer to get the cell phone back. If anyone has got any idea regarding what can be done in this regard, please give your comments. It is a CDMA (Reliacne Infocomm) cell phone. It has been reported as stolen and so it is almost useless, as you can’t change the SIM card unlike GSM phones.

Bad Days

2005-10-20T12:27:00.000+05:30

It has been quite a while since my last post. Well, you should blame the changing weather for that. Mumbai, after months of tremendous downpours is suddenly hot and sticky. I got ill and what a time to get sick! I was down with cold and fever on the eve of Saptami. What a mess! Man, puja this time was the worst ever. At the time of hanging around in pandals, I was taking medicines from a physician just in front of my house. There was a pandal near my house. I must say it was rather good and I had planned to visit it at least once during the puja days. But the ailment held me indoor. I am yet to get out of the sickness both physical and mental.

When Hell Broke Loose (Mumbai Rain)

2005-10-14T14:43:00.000+05:30

One’s experience in Mumbai is counted as the number of monsoons one has endured in the city – I didn’t understood when I first read it somewhere. I had to wait only a couple of weeks as the realization came the hard way.

It was in the afternoon of 25th July. One of my friends called and informed that the office was called off early because of rain and we must leave for home. In the comfort of my cubicle, cut off from the world outside, I was rather amazed at such a decision. After all, it wasn’t a school. What sort of a company can declare rainy day for grown-up professionals like school kids! Rubbish! So we decided to indulge ourselves into emailing and orkuting for some more time.

It took us getting out of our comfy shelter to perceive that the company, in fact, wasn’t that dumb. It was ridiculous to use our umbrellas in such a deluge. There wasn’t any auto on the street, at least as far we could see. The vision was heavily blurred in the thick downpour. Waddling around the potholes and avoiding splashes of muddy water from occasional bikes on the road, we made our way home.

There was no electricity. As we groped around in our rooms, the watchman came and announced that the water supply had given in and there would be no water for at least two days. So there we were, four people drenched to our bones without light and water.

In the next two days the matter got only worse. We had no drinking water in stock, neither had the shops near by. We used to get up in the morning, took our brushes, soaps, and shaving equipments and went to the office, our ultimate refuge. The autos were charging more. On the other hand, the banks were closed and the ATM network down. We were awfully running out of money.

I am not quite sure what we would have done if the situation continued to be like that. Thankfully it improved and normalcy was restored in steps. Our humble place of dwelling served us quite well, as the area wasn’t waterlogged like other more happening places in Mumbai. At least, we could resort to the office. The office was such a nice place to be -:)

The Evolution of Pastime

2005-10-11T13:37:00.000+05:30

Once the trouble of getting a residence was settled, the inevitable problem of pastime arose. We had a house – fine! But what to do inside those four walls? Thankfully we had to spend most of the daytime in the office. Still you can’t be in the office forever and you can’t sleep whenever at home.

In those early days, we used to come back from office and make a meticulous attempt to decide how much money we owed to one another. We had to share equally the price of a washing soap or the fare of the auto. It wasn’t as easy as it seems. Added to the complexity was the urge to pass as much time as possible to avoid sitting idle in the rooms. Don’t think that there was a lot of money involved. It was more about the time than the money. We called the piece of paper, on which we put the final calculated result, the ‘log file’. The ‘log file’ is still alive but with much less time attached to it.

No matter how scrupulous we were regarding the ‘log file’ it wasn’t enough. So next came the newspaper. If you don’t understand what ‘reading between the lines’ means, you should have watched me then. No piece of news, however insignificant, could escape my studious vigor.

The newspaper session couldn’t last long. After all, how long can you force engineering students to read like that? (The answer, I suppose, will be, “three days preceding the exam”) So to aid the ‘log file’ and the newspaper came the FM radio. Now, this one was a real good source of entertainment. We liked the programs especially those on ‘Radio City’, stuff like ‘Dr Love’ or ‘Love Guru’.

At the end of the first month, we got our first salaries. I received my credit card too. Using that we added the final object to our pastime collection, a 21’’ flat screen colour television. Today the TV is the most used of the lot. But all other forms of our previous pastimes still exist.

In Search of an Abode

2005-10-08T15:33:00.000+05:30

The desperate search for a house marked the first two weeks of my stay in Mumbai. I had secured a place in the guesthouse eventually, but that lodging was guaranteed only for 15 days. So outside the office hours it was always about brokers, rents, BHKs and RKs.

The first time someone said, “do BHK ka kiraya char hazar ke aspas hoga” (the rent of a two BHK flat will be around four thosand), I was rather confused with that new jargon. However, the casual tone definitely indicated that it was a very common term of usage. I didn’t want to look stupid. So I nodded in a way that wasn’t confident but good enough to let the other person assume that I had understood.

It wasn’t difficult to figure out BHK and RK as we, me & one of my friends, had to get a look on a number of those different-sized and different-priced flats all around where my office is located. The brokers played a vital role in the house hunt process. We used to travel by the bike of our broker. Thanks to the broker and my friend being too lean and thin, we managed to squeeze on the same bike. It must have been a treat for the passers-by to watch us on the vehicle.

After about a dozen of such perilous rides, we finally hit upon our choice. It was a two BHK flat with three rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a large terrace for a monthly rent of Rs.4500/-. I share it now with three of my friends who work in the same company. We had settled for this flat in spite of it being a bit far from the more happening areas because it was cheap. But we would soon find out that this humble dwelling had added benefits other than its inexpensiveness.

The First Day in Mumbai (part III)

2005-10-06T19:55:00.000+05:30

(It is a continuation of the previous two posts. This one will be more meaningful if you read those first.)

The staggering 29-storey-high structure of Naperol Tower was a great relief. It was a big residential complex. The guesthouse was on the first floor of ‘A’ wing. Inspiring my exhausted frame with the thought of impending rest, I dragged myself up with the luggage to the destination. But the destiny wasn’t that sweet and simple.

There was no booking for me. A bit more of persisting verbal exchanges and data mining in the computer made the picture clear. A booking was made in my name for 27th. Since I had joined on 6th (I had no idea that the joining date had been changed), the booking for 27th was cancelled and to my utmost anguish no substitute had been arranged.

I tried all kinds of tricks to secure a place in the guesthouse. I offered to pay. I requested first for a room and then for a sofa. I asked whether I could talk to anybody for a late booking. But nothing was of avail. Finally I called my HR in-charge. He took someone else in the telephonic conference. I was first adamant about traveling again in a taxi in the night. However it soon became clear that I had no other option.

With about 20 minutes of discussion, the situation was settled. A booking was made in a hotel in Turbhe. The clerk in the guesthouse, perhaps because of being a Bengali himself, took pity on me. He arranged for a taxi and I had to travel all the way back to Navi Mumbai.

As I sank in my deepest slumber in the hotel room at last, it was hard to feel that it was in fact my first day in Mumbai. It has been the longest day so far.

The First Day in Mumbai (part II)

2005-10-01T17:45:00.000+05:30

(It is continuation of the previous post. So if you haven’t already read that, better do that first.)

I was carrying a pretty heavy suitcase and a bag of decent size. I availed one of the small vehicles plying on the roads inside the office campus and reached block D. The campus is pretty big. A wide road stretches straight from the main entrance to a large fountain. Behind the fountain are the buildings where people work. The buildings are arranged in two somewhat circular arrangements. One circle comprises of blocks ‘A’ to ‘E’ and the other one includes from ‘F’ to ‘J’. There are other buildings too but I wasn’t and still am not concerned with those much. However the aspect more conspicuous than the extent of the campus was its cleanliness. I felt good to be in such a campus and hoped that everything would turn out to be equally neat.

At 11 in the morning, we were around twelve people in a conference room. Waiting. When the silence was unbearable I started with my introduction. The cue was taken up by others and within some moments I realized what was most essential, that we all belonged to the same frequency, all fresh graduates from IITs. You know what I mean.

I don’t want to bore you with what happened next in the office. Exactly as expected, form filling and introduction and etc. Only important thing was a bit of miscommunication. The HR official told me that I was expected on 27th whereas I came on 6th. He assured however that there will be no problem and directed me to the guesthouse in Wadala.

At around 7pm I came out of the office premises. Remember my luggage. This time I wasn’t lucky to catch one of those vehicles and was blaming the company for having to carry the luggage around in such a large campus. I took an auto (will write about the ubiquitous autos in Mumbai in a later post, there is a lot to write about). I reached Vashi, the entrance of Navi Mumbai from the larger part of main Mumbai. I took a taxi for Wadala.

The ride was going nice until I suddenly realized that we were no longer in a city and it was getting dark. There were no buildings in sight except only a distant factory. The roads were pretty empty with occasional high-speed cars darting past us. I must admit I was quite shocked. If the taxi driver had any intension to rob me, it was the perfect time and place. I took out the piece of paper containing phone numbers from my purse and placed it in my book-pocket. If someone snatched my purse, I would still have the contacts – logic, you see. Much to my relief, the taxi got into a crowded area once more and I reached the guesthouse. But the ordeal was far from getting over.
(I later came to know that the deserted road was Chembur-Wadala highway.)

(To be Continued ....)

The First Day in Mumbai

2005-09-30T17:12:00.000+05:30

It was 4:30 in the morning. I had just reached the Lokmannya Tilak Terminus (LTT) better known as the Kurla railway station, one of the three main terminuses of Mumbai. It was 6th June. I had to report to my office that very day by 10:30 in the morning. My dad had arranged someone to pick me up from the station but none was there at that moment. I called the guy on his mobile. The phone kept on ringing. Just as I was going to give up the response came.

“Hello!”

You can never say ‘hello’ with more reluctance. I could almost smell the annoyance in his words. When I informed him of my arrival, the man was equally surprised and disgusted that an Indian train had made it on time.

After around 45 minutes a slim man arrived. As no person other than myself was having considerable amount of luggage at such an early hour of the day in the station, he had no problem in pinpointing me as his target. This man was definitely not the one I had talked to earlier. This man had a terrible nasal pronunciation, which made him repeat everything at least twice before it made sense to me.

However the drive with Mr. Nasal was fine, as it required minimum verbal interaction. I went to a hotel, bathed and had a good breakfast. After a 36-hour journey by train, those were most welcome.

At around 9 I took another ride, this time with a friend of Mr. Nasal. I was in Vile-Parle. From there I went to Navi Mumbai. The roads in Navi Mumbai were broader, less crowded and had better trafficking systems at least as compared to most of Kolkata and part of Mumbai I had seen. I reached the main entrance of the office in time. I thought I would go to the office, have some introduction, fill some obligatory forms and then rest in the accommodation provided by the company. I desperately wanted to have a good sleep on a soft bed that I missed in the train. I had no idea that so much was in store on my very first day in Mumbai.

(To Be Continued ....)

2005-09-30T06:20:00.000+05:30

I had a blog earlier which was rather more philosophical(?).
If you really like sentiments check out my earlier blogs here or here.
This time I plan to be more simple, mundane and hope to maintain the blog for long.