Apartment at Whitefield

We are in the process of signing an agreement for purchasing a 3 bedroom apartment on the 8th floor in Whitefield.

It has been quite exciting in finalizing the apartment. We have made some changes to the layout to make it more exciting. We have made the kitchen open. We have created provision for french doors in living and master bedroom. Made the master bedroom a little bigger. Made provision for a puja room. Increased bathroom space.

It has been quite satisfying in getting involved right at the stage of construction. I infact make it a point to climb 8 floors atleast once in two days to see the progress of the construction.

I really like the location of the place. It has got a vinayagar temple and a huge playground right opposite. Forum Value mall is 2 kms away. My work place is just 2.5 kms away.

It has got an amazing view from the top. One can see the entire whitefield from the top in addition to the lush greenery all around.

The place is supposed to be completed by March 31, 2010.

Remembering School Days

Last night, I was browsing the internet and was reading some random blogs. I happen to come across a blog by one Tanmay Sahay http://tanmaysahay.blogspot.com/. This guy's blog is about his personal experience etc and is extremely well written. In one of his blogs, he had listed out some of his memories from childhood. I thought it might be fun to list some my own memories from school days in Chennai and here they are:

• Asking for cricket scores during lunch and interval from the house behind our school
• Racing in my black street cat cycle with my friends
• Walking in the hot sun with hands over my friends shoulder
• Spending endless hours playing TV games at my cousin's place in Chengalpattu
• Playing under arm cricket in the narrow lane near our house
• Playing book cricket tournaments
• Waiting for one whole week for that one hour of PT period
• Collecting big fun chewing gum - foot ball flash cards and exchanging the same with friends
• Stealing comics from my lending library & getting caught
• My entire family (Mom, Me, Sis,dad) going out in my dad's bullet
• Dreading when they give my school report card to get it signed by my parents
• Entire family including few guests sleeping in one AC room during summers
• Performing for Michael Jackson's " Smooth Criminal" at our intra school culturals and winning 3rd place
• Bragging to my friends that I have started shaving
• Eating Mollaga Bajji (Chilli Pakoda) at Marina Beach
• Pooling money with my friends to buy Debonaire
• Waiting in the queue for hours at Sathyam Theater to book tickets in advance for a Rajinikanth's or Kamal's new release
• Tasting beer and pretending to have liked it
• Letting my friends copy my answers in exam and feeling proud about it
• Sucking that 1 Rs rasna juice packet and walking back home with the juice dripping all over my white shirt
• Wearing 'Power' Bata shoes with pride to school

Someone stole my blog!

Last Friday, it was an off day for me at work and I had restarted my blogging. I churned out 3 new blogs and re wrote one of my old blog. I was just sitting in front of my laptop the whole damn day. I just got completely hooked. My wife even complained "enough of this blogging, let's go out for sometime." Last 3 days, I have been busy exploring ways to market my blog better to reach out to more people and make the blog more presentable. Only then I realized there is a whole new world out there and seems like I am one of the last few to catch the Blogging Bus. Interestingly, I had opened this account 3-4 years back, and have been blogging on and off. But, the way the blogging world has expanded, matured and commercialized over the years is just phonomenal.

So, I think it was saturday morning, my wife was busy in the kitchen and I was browsing the internet. There was a comment from someone in one of my blogs. I was impressed. Not bad, just one day into blogging, I have comments already. I was excited and told my wife about it. So, I casually went to see the blog of the person who had made the comment. That is when I had quite a shock. One of my blog was stolen! I saw one of my writings "Tips for effective customer interaction" in his website. Holy shit, I was quite perturbed. Looks like someone has walked in to my blog and lifted one of my writings without bothering to inform me or give credits to me.

On one hand, I was elated that someone felt my writing was good enough to be stolen but at the same time, it really irritated me. Have any of you guys ever had this experience of stumbling into your own writing in someone else website? After some stinkers, He dragged himself to mention my name is one remote corner without giving link to my website.
But for this lone episode, blogging has been a pleasure so far. I have got to interact with many interesting people.

One Night in a BPO

“Amit, can you please send me those slides asap…I need to send the consolidated pitch for the internal review call in another 1 hour” I said assertively to Amit, the subject matter expert. He promised to send the pages in another 5 minutes. I went back to reviewing my pitch to see for any more changes. I inserted Amit's slides once i received them. I was all set for the internal review of the due dilligence pitch with our internal stake holders.

I was the project manager of the recent onsite due dilligence project for one of our big clients. We had gone onsite to study their processes and had come up with a report of processes that could be outsourced to India. The report talked about the processes that could be outsourced, why should it be outsourced, how could it be outsourced and what would be the cost impact of the same.

So, the call started at 630pm. Slowly all the internal stake holders (or characters) joined in, with the BD guy joining the last. The most difficult character of all was the operation VP. He has the habit of assuming everyone except him is not smart and not good enough. He questioned, probably for the 8th time.."so, did we validate the FTE numbers with the customer..are the assumptions correct?"..i was beginning to lose my patience..but i managed " yes it is all correct". So, we reviewed the whole pitch slide by slide. Everyone gave their two cents. Some really good. Some, just for the sake of it...like my immediate boss..who was new to his role and was really trying to impress everyone. Well as the project manager, one has to take all kinds of shit. The call got over by 730pm. We were to have a call with our client the same day to review the same pitch at 1130pm. I always hated late night calls. I cursed, but went about making the final changes and sent the pitch to the client at 830pm. Post which, i just dialled Amit on his cell and checked if he wanted to go for dinner in our office cafeteria.

I called and told my wife that It would late by the time I come home tonight and would be having dinner in office. I joined Amit in the buzzing cafteria. The food looked sad, but it was free. So, we took whatever they got to offer and started our dinner. One of our favourite topic was to bitch about my new dumb boss. I went again " Amit, I feel he is one of the least talented guys i have ever worked with in this company. It is so unfortunate that i have to work for him. huh"...With a good listener in Amit..i went on..." you know, i donno where he picks up his fake american accent..he just cant stop blabbering during customer calls...god save us and the customer." . Since we had lot of time before our review call with client, we decided to take a walk around the company in an effort to reduce our ever bulging tummy.

Finally, got back to our desks around 930pm to see some 10 new messages in my email inbox. 5 of it was from my dear boss. He was yelling that i had not made certain changes (suggested by him) in the final pitch i had sent to the customer. I had conciously left out certain of his as it made no sense at all to have them in there. Thought it was better to handle my boss seperately than to have to face the customer's question regarding those dumb suggestions. So, I just gave him a call "hi...sorry, listen..er..well...i totally missed out on those..it was a honest mistake...." he was like "huh..ok..but please dont let this happen again"...I thought to myself.. "yes, if you dont give such dumb suggestions again". well once i consoled him, I got a call from my operations VP.."Hi...listen..did you check the performance metrics with black belt? are you sure about the assumptions we have made...is amit comfortable with the productivity given?" i was like"yes ram, i have told you before as well..this was all done one week back..and besides I have already sent the final document to the customer"...quick came back reply "oh well...but..ek bar amit se deklo...."... I thought to myself "phew, how did this guy manage to be a VP..he sure is one insecured sole.." but i managed " sure ram, i will do that..thanks". I went back to checking my emails..there was one positive mail from my Business Development guy. He wrote "Mathuag, Great job on putting the pitch together, I think it looks great..i am sure customer will love it...now, we just have to nail the deal..Thanks"...Finally, it felt great to get some positive response. I was elated.

The conference call started at 113opm sharp. The customer, in their true american style, logged in at sharp 1130pm...and my dear internal india team, true to their style, logged on 3 minutes late. I, being the call organizer, had a quick roll call to make sure everyone was there and gave a quick introduction and purpose of the call. Then I started walking them through the pitch, slide by slide. There were some questions in between. Finally, I said "Bob, this brings us to the end of the pitch, do you have any more questions or comments". Bob, Sr VP, Customer said "Hey, no not really mathuag, everything looks fantastic,...I must say you and your team has done a great job in pulling this report together..thanks for all the hardwork....however, I will have to review this with my internal team and look at the pitch again and go over the details...i think that might take about 1 weeks time..post which we will get back..." suddenly one voice with a fake american accent spoke "Bob..thanks for your time....er..ah...however,...ah ah.. we would like to know ...eh eh...when you would get back on next steps..ah ah...if required, we can set up another call to walk you through again.....er...". well, that was my dear boss. Me and Amit, put the phone on mute and exchanged some curse words in all languages. In the meanwhile, Bob shot back quite assertively this time.." well, that wont be required..who was that again?..anyways, as I mentioned we will get back to you guys in a weeks time"..my boss said "oh ok, sorry about that Bob, we will wait for your response..." I jutted in and said "well then, if anyone does not have any more questinons, Bob, probably I shall set up a follow up call one week from now to take this forward? will that work?" Bob said " yes, that should work". I said.." ok then, thanks everyone for your time, we shall regroup again in a weeks time." We disconnected the call. It was round 1245am.In the meanwhile, there had been few missed calls & SMS from my wife on my cellphone asking when i would be back. I called her and told her i will be home in 20 minutes. Then, I shook hands with my buddy amit thanking him for all his support. Both of us had worked our ass of for the last 2 months on this project and at the same time had a blasts travelling to florida for the due dilligence. We packed our laptop bags and rushed out of the building. And that brings another hectic but exciting day in my bpo career.

Accident in Gurgaon

Monday August 06, 2007

It was a busy day at work. I had a late night meeting (or a conference call...the BPO Lingo) with a client at 1230am. By the time, I could wrap up and leave for home it was some 1 am. I gathered my laptop and other things headed for the parking lot in the basement. I kickstarted my black honda unicorn and headed out of the building. I took my usual route back home..it was quite desserted. For some reason, I was driving cautiously at some 50km per hour. On the way, I saw one black electric wire hanging low some 20 yards before me...for a second i was not sure what was happening..suddenly I see it giving out fuse lights and burning out...and I see in front of me one bike going on its own at 80kms per hour with no one on it..and a guy fallen on the ground bleeding and one guy just trying to get up. I was shocked...i realized, these guys have hit the low lying wire and have fallen down. Since I could not speak hindi fluently, i was not sure how much i could help these guys. One guy had gotten up by then..i went to him and asked.."boss, what's up,, are you ok?"...he replied back "sir, no, my whole body is burning..need help sir"..i was not sure what to do...i saw some trucks comming towards us..and one guy was still lying on the middle of the road. I was not sure if he was alive. So i went and kept my bike with lights on before him as a caution....so that no one runs over him by mistake..and i started waving at people comming nearby for "help"...many guys, i presume out of fear, just saw us and turned back and went....as gurgaon is known for its dacoitey...

Finally one guy going in his scooter...stopped his vehicle and came for help...we both lifted the guy lying on the middle of the road and placed him on the pavement.. I was relieved to see he was still breathing and moving. I asked that helper to take care of the fallen guy....and me and other guy went on my bike to call his friends, who were living nearby.....I was a little scared as I could be easily blammed for the accident and with my language skills..I would never be able to defend myself...anyways, i just had to do this help...so we both went and found his friends..the guy spoke english..he said he was from AP and had come here to meet friends...he cursed his friend for driving so fast...the scene kept playing in my head and it drove paranoid...finally we reached the place...it was a small hut some 2 kms away from the scene of accident..he went and called his friends out..some local guys came out in their trousers..he explained what happened..they immediately dressed up and came along with me..we went back to the accident scene...one of the guys collected the motor bike on the way, which had travelled some 0.5 kms away from the accidents scene...when we reached the place.. i was glad to see the other "helper" guy still waiting with the " fallen" guy... he said he had called the ambulance of Paras Downtown hospital..all of us waited around for some time. Soon, 2 more of his friends joined us. Now that these guys have enough help and the ambulance is on its way, I thought my work there was over...So I finally decided to take leave. I shook hands with everyone and thanked the "helper" guy to have stopped and helpedus...told him" boss you are theonly guy who bothered to stop and help", he gave a calm smile. and then I put on my helmet and left home with a satisfaction.

Love in Delhi

It was 2nd week of June 2006. Peak summer in Gurgaon. I had just moved there. New Place. New people. New language. New food. You could say I was a little lost in that place. Thankfully, three of my colleagues/friends from Bangalore had also moved into gurgaon….so I had some company. But my life pretty much revolved around my office. I used to come in around 10am and hang around till 9.30-10pm. At that time, since I was quite new to the role, my boss wanted me to get acquainted with all the products. I was not quite assigned to any project and I did have lot of free time.

In my office, there was always shortage of seats for people and I did not quite have a seat allotted to me. So I was like a nomad - literally carrying my laptop from one place to another. So, it was my 2nd week in Delhi, My boss asked me to go and sit in fourth floor of my building as there was one seat available till 4 pm..…..off I went to fourth floor and sat in my new seat….then, I think on June 19th…… I saw this dusky looking gal with long hair and very beautiful eyes, walking by….. “hmm, what a beautiful girl!” I just said to myself and went about minding my business. Since the seat was allotted for me only till 4pm, I had to find another seat after 4pm…..so I went around looking for an empty seat. There was a seat next to that girl and another seat in the same area. I was feeling a little shy to go and sit next to her. So I went and sat in another seat in the same neighborhood. I remember messaging my friend MC over our internal messenger that “man, there is this hot girl sitting in my bay, I got to talk to her!” And it so happened, the next day, I went to sit in the seat that was allotted to me, but to my irritation, there was another guy already sitting in that place, he was like “ I need to sit here for today, I shall give you another seat of our team, you could go and sit there…” in the typical delhi cockiness....I was like” sure, does not matter to me”. So I settled myself in my new seat and started on my new assignment. I had a 3.30 pm deadline…so I was quite focused on it. Suddenly, it struck me, “man, I am sitting at the seat next to that “hot” girl’s.” She had not come in then. Then she came in around 2pm. My heart did beat fast. I badly wanted to talk to her something. But I had this damn deadline. So I was really trying to focus on that. Then around 4 pm, once I finished my deliverable….I was like ..” alright, I must talk something”,,I analyzed different options as to how to start…then I decided to make it simple and innocent…and said “so, which team sits here” like I really care, who sits here….she was like “well, different team sits here”…but she was quite sociable as well..she asked me “so what are you working on”…I told her that I am working on a powerpoint…and then I just stretched my hands and introduced myself. And then, we started talking casually….Since Bangalore had a better brand image than Chennai among north Indian girls…so when she asked me, so where are you from …I said “ well, I just moved from Bangalore”…she was like ”is it, are you a kanadiga”…”no, I am tamil…why, are you a Kanadiga?”..she was like “yes, and I am also from Bangalore”….then I decided before getting into any further embarrassment…”well I am basically from Chennai, but was working in bangalore before I moved here”….…right from the word go, we struck a great rapport …I felt very comfortable talking to her...became quite close over the week…but I was still shy to officially ask her out…so I just asked for her number before I left for that weekend…I messaged her on that Sunday…we exchanged lot of messages and finally I asked her over one of the messages on that hot Sunday afternoon if she would want to meet up that evening…she replied back saying “Heyy sorry had dozed off! Wud have luvd meetin up today but is diff…lets plan for the next weekend or something…I need a lil advance notice”…i joked back saying…”Cancel whatever you had planned, not everyday you get to go out with a would be hindi scholar”…came back the reply” lol…mudiada da! Even though I want too. Damn wot a misd opp! But il make it up in a da future I swear! ;)”

Yet another year is over

well, I almost forgot that I had a blog page until I was reading my friend MC's Blog page and it had a link to mine :-). I was reading through my different posting...which is almost more than a year old, it gave me a nice feeling. I was like, man, my life has changed so much from the last time I had posted a blog. I had moved to Delhi, I got into another exciting role, I got promoted, I fell in love, I got married, I travelled to Japan, USA & Uk. Phew 2006- 2007 has been one amazing year. I guess I must start making my entries in this page again. It is quite nice to have different events in one's life captured somewhere...makes it a good reading later on. So hopefully, whenever I find time, i am going to make it a habit to record the little events happening in my life.

A Drive to the Mango Orchard

It was another lazy weekend in chennai. Sun was blazing hot. Nice home cooked meal. Sun tv. Thiruttu cd on the computer. helped my dad out a bit with his organic store. a trip to the farms outside the city. quality family time. This kinda sums up my trip to chennai.

I just realized I hardly got friends I could hang out with in chennai anymore. Most of the people I used to hang out with have either moved out of chennai or they are really very busy or I am not in touch with them.... so much for having spent some good 21 years of my life in that city. I guess that's payoff for not being here for the last 5 years.

Anyways, something interesting about my weekend was my trip with my dad to his farms outside the city. It was a nice drive there. It was very heartening to see how well the infrastructure has developed over the years. Nice broad roads, not much
traffic, excellent exit ways. The ride was amazing especially in my dad's tata mobile. It is cool vehicle. almost like a truck, occupies one whole road. kinda gives out dont-mess-with-me kinda statement. excellent power steering and pick up. However, the roads leading to the farm was not so great. Actually, there was no roads. There was this pit right in front of our pathway. we put some stones to avoid getting stuck there. Inspite of that, our wheel got stuck in the pit. So me and my dad were stuck in the middle of no where. In the far off, we could see some guys grazing their cows. we called them up for help. Apparently, my dad knew that guy and he was eager to help out. two more guys came up on the way. They offered to give us a hand as well. So all of us tried pushing the vehicle out of the pit. But the vehicle did not move an inch out. In the meanwhile, bunch of kids came there....they were giving all kinds of suggestion to move the vehicle out...one of them offered to go and get an axe ..In the meanwhile, another set of village dudes came that side....so some 6 dudes and 5 kids tried pushing the vehicle again. It worked this time. Kids were all excited. Haaaaaay! They shouted and gave high fies to one another. It was definitely a fun moment. After that, the village dudes went on their way with a smile, and the kids joined us in the same vehicle on our way to the farm. They showed us a friendlier route to reach our mango orchard. I wondered if we would have gotten this kinda unconditional help in the mind-your-business-cities.

Even when I was a kid, I had always enjoyed my trips to the farms. Me and my elder cousin brother have spent many a long hours during summer holidays in these farms - laughing, playing, fighting, eating raw mango, drinking tender coconut, bathing in the pumpset, swimming the river, driving tractor, flying kite, teasing the dogs and cows etc. All the memories are now rushing back to me. But now he is in USA and me hardly visit these farms. Sometimes I think I should plan to settle down somewhere here. But I wonder after having got used to the hustle bustle of the city, if I would be able to live there for long. Whatever it is, this will be one of my favorite places in the world.

I didn't get the job!

"Congratulations, you got the role, if you got any questions, feel free to call me....and the HR person would get in touch with you with the offer in a day or two" I was ecsatic. I finally got my dream role. Finally, something I could use my full potential for.. Finally something challenging. It is going to be for 2 years in pensylvania, USA. After some 2 months of frustrated waiting and after some 4 rounds of interview, I finally got the role. Something worth mentioning was my one round of interview with the CEO. That was the first round and was the make or break. The CEO had come down to bangalore on some work, and bunch of us were to be interviewed with her for various roles. The interview went great and she loved me. She gave me an excellent feedback. The kind of feedback that my manager would never even think of. My HR coordinator was equally excited, and was like "hey, you got the role man, now there is no turning back". So finally it did happen, now all i had to do was wait for the offer letter. I took some days off from work and visited my parents in chennai. It was wonderful. Came back all happy and gay to work. Got a mail from the HR contact in USA asking me to call her. I thought probably some salary negotiation. But I kinda had this uneasy feeling. I called her up on her cellphone. After exchanging the usual pleasantries...she was like "looks like the role we hired you for kinda got stretched too much and we need someone at the level of Ast Vice President for that role..." After that, whatever she said, did not really enter my head....I told myself "Man, why the F**K did you guys waste my time so long" ..She was like "Hey, are you there?, anything you want to say"..I was like"Well, I am just a little surprised.....and shocked, But it is ok, just got to deal with it". After the call, I just said to myself "Everything happens for a reason", let me see what I can do next. After all, another experience in my bag. I am sure, one day, I would be reading the same story with a smile on my face.

Auto Ride

Arrived in chennai via charminar express from Hyderabad at around 10.15am on Thursday. The heavy humidity reminded me it was not hyderabad or bangalore any more. But, it is always a good feeling to come back home. Passing through the much familar mount road, sathyam theater, etc was always nice.

On the way, I struck a conversation with the auto guy about the election scene. The result was about to be out that day. So I asked him "enenga, election resulta iniiku, yaare support panrenga?" (so, election results today eh?, whom did u support). He gave back one happy laugh and said, "dmkthange, neenga eppadi, admkva?" (DMK, what about you, ADMK?). I tried avoiding answering that, but he kept asking again, so i had to say, yes admk. Infact,it does not really matter, whoever wins. In today's politics, it is just a matter of lesser of two evils. But one great thing I hear for Indian Politics is the sprout of Lok Paritran. A bunch of IITians have started this political team. Kinda like ayuthey ezhithu. They did not win any, but they have atleast made people aware about them. Hopefully, by next election they should grow into a bigger and powerful setup. So I reached home, and had some nice meal cooked by mom. Chatted about my new found role with dad, mom and sis. In the meanwhile, election results came out pretty strongly in favor of dmk. So, it is going to be karunanidhi for the 5th time in Tamilnadu. Farewell Jaya. I thought she did good compared to her previous term. Should be interesting to see
what the 83 year old CM going to do now.

Free Time & Money - Inversely Related

The other day i was talking over msn messenger to one of my buddies from my university days in usa. It has been one and half years since i have come back from usa and i have not been in touch with no one ever since. Finally I managed to remember my password of my old msn messenger login...i was thinking it might have got expired by now. viola, it worked. MSN messenger used to be one of my closest aid while i was in USA...easiest way to keep in touch with near and loved ones. Anyways, it was pretty cool to know what was everyone upto. We were talking about the days when we used to go to casinos. We used to be a casino freaks then. Just enjoyed the adraline rush. Especially used to love playing Blackjack. Man, I have won and lost so much in that game. Probably I could write a blog on that another day.
He was telling me, the time has changed, and he hardly finds time to go to a casino and even if he does, there was hardly any company. Well that's how it is....is it not? When you got the time and company, you dont have the money. But when you have the money, you dont have the time and company. Another Irony of life!

What's Up?

This is what is up in my part of the world . . . .

- Stock Market Booming, Sensex touched 11.7k today....12k is in the offing. That means more money for me!

- Summer is setting in....I should be moving out of cool bangalore soon. Sigh. Dont know where! Depends on my next role at work. Could be Delhi or outside India.

- Am into Art of Living. Regularly do sudharshana Kriya and Pranayama. Must say, it is been pretty good.

- Into eating Healthy Foods. Stopped drinking Coffee. Reduced eating rice and other carbs. Eat lot of rotis. Health by numbers!

- Working out in the Gym. But not so regularly as I used to. My Gym buddy/room mate has moved out of bangalore. Sigh. Finding it hard to motivate myself to go alone.

- Already looking forward to the weekend. Probably one of my last 2-3 weekends in bangalore.

Farewell Bangalore!

All of us shouted "to Bangalore!" as we had our first round of vodka.The weekend started from our home on friday at about 7.30 pm . Some of our friendsgathered for some quick drinks before we could head off to "Cosmo Village"

It was a farewell party to ourselves. For the wonderful times we have had at this great city. Yes, it has its own pit falls like bad traffic and sloppy infrastructure. But at the end of the day, I personally think that the crowd, weather and the things you get to do in that place, is what makes that place special or interesting. Given these criterias, Bangalore is easily one of the best places to live in. Will definitely miss this city when I move out of this place in about 2-3 weeks time.

Back to our evening....Rag was doing the mixing. He was generously pouring vodka and stingily pouring the mix. Vodka large suddenly became XXLarge. Anyways, we gulped the drinks quickly and headed out. It was me, My room mates Rag and anil and Raul. We were supposed to meet Sanj at Cosmo Village. It was a posh restaurant/bar where one would normally think twice before ordering anything. But for heaven sakes, it was our farewell, who cares about the money! So, the four semi-drunken guys reached there about 9 pm. The Place was just great - Some interesting chicks, some sizzling ladies, smooth lighting, relaxing music and smartly dressed waiters. Well, we found Sanj having a long island tea in one corner of the room. We immediately joined him and ordered three more long island tea, a blue lagoon cocktail and some snacks. Rag and me were already quite drunk. Both of us could not resist looking at two hot elegant ladies sitting right in front of our table. "Man, check the dude with whom she has come...." Rag was pointing at a dude who has bald, dark and fat. I said “some guys have all the luck in the world”.. “ or probably he is a gutsy dude to ask such a beautiful lady out, while the handsome ones were shying to do so…”shot back sanj…...In the meanwhile, the waiter came with our cocktails...So we went on again "for the wonderful times in Bangalore" and had our cocktails. After some 3 more rounds and one more round of tequila shots, it was time to leave home, they were shutting the place down. When we got the bill, all of us were looking at each other. Sanj bravely took the bill out and all our eyes were eagerly following his facial expression. He casually said, "ah, some 7000 rupees."

After getting over the initial shock, Raul did the math of how much each owes. After finishing the bill paying formalities, we headed out in Sanj’s car. Rag shouted, "I need more booze". Sanj was like "so do I". Raul "guys, lets go to my place, I got tequila and margarita mix". So the evening continued and off we went to Raul’s place and woke up his wife at about 1 am. The nice person that she is, accommodated a bunch of drunken guys with a smile. We creeped into the house, so as not wake up raul's parents. We went to his balcony continued the night with drinks. After two rounds of margarita and lot more rounds of crap talks, we decided it was time to leave home...So around 3 am, we left from Raul's place. That was one of the very many evenings we had spent in Bangalore. But sadly, that was one of the last couple of outings all of us had gone out together in Bangalore. Farewell Bangalore!

Pattiyal Experience

It was a pleasant friday evening in bangalore. After a lazy day at work, I was standing for the company bus to leave for home. It was about 7.50pm when Kishan called me up to see if I wanted to go to a tamil movie. I did not have any great plans, and I immediately said "sure, machan!" "Do get the tix, I shall meet you up around 8.30-8.45pm at Udipi garden, we shall have dinner and hit pvr cinemas in Forum."The usual traffic in hosur road made sure I reached Udipi garden at sharp 9pm. To my surprise kishan had invited some of his telugu friends for the tamil movie. None of the guys can undestand tamil. Well, I jus said to myself "wow, this is going to be fun". So we all went to the forum mall. We had a quick dinner at a mexican joint and then rushed to the theatre. The movie was pattiyal. A movie about 2 assasins. Even though , it reminded one of pithamagan movie, I kinda enjoyed it. It was not the usual masala crap that kollywood normally churns out. It had it good moments. The two main leads arya and bharath had performed very well. The movie got over about 12.30am. So, we were walking out of the theatre...I was quite elated and casually asked lohith "So watsup man, were you able to follow the movie?", I could see a disgruntled look on his face...and quick came the answer "yea, to some extent, but it was quite boring" Well, I did not venture into that topic after that and quickly changed the topic....I can understand how difficult it would have been to watch a movie without understanding the language.....Being someone who can follow paltry hindi and having watched many hidi movies with my north indian friends, I know the pain! But overall it was a good evening!

For review of pattiyal click here http://sify.com/movies/tamil/review.php?id=14164659&ctid=5&cid=2429

A Night at Taika!

One of my friend had come down from bombay with her friend. It was a thursday evening and we decided to hit one of the happening places in bangalore. Taika. It definitely is one of the best clubs I have been to. So, it was me, my room mate Rag and the two gals. We were having a good time, dancing and sipping vodka. I am not much of a dancer, unless I am quite drunk. So I was just enjoying myself moving my body, relaxing and watching people. Among the crowd, my eyes saw a very cute girl dancing and drinking beer. She had a nice energy about her. I could not resist myself from looking at her. I told one of my female friend "hey, i think that babe over there looks really cute", my friend, like a typical bombayite, told me "hmm, man, if you like her, why dont you ask her out ?"So, When it hit 11.30pm and staffs were asking everyone to leave, "coincidentally" she was standing next to me. I decided to go for the kill and tapped on the girls shoulder. She turned back. I smiled at her and said "Hey, you're looking very cute!" She gave a sweet smile and said "thanks!" and turned back to her friend. I tapped again and said" Hey, how about going out sometime?" Instant came the reply "oh, no, sorry!"I did not give up. I said, "why, what's wrong? we shall meet for an innocent coffee and see how it goes..." I guess she was impressed by my persistence, she said, "what is your name ?"I told her my name. She then said," listen, give me your number, i shall call you if i want to..."Ahh, I thought, she is just saying to get rid off me. Anyways, I did not have anything to lose, So i just gave her my number. I then asked her, "but hey, what's your name?" She was like,"..... i will call you!" and then walked off with her friend. In the meanwhile, my friends were sitting behind and waiting, i came back dissappointed and said, "looks like she is not interested"my friends were like, "not bad, atleast you tried, no big deal!"In a way, I was glad, I overcame my innate shyness and did what i wanted. So life goes on.I just went back home and had a good nights sleep. The next day, ahh, it was still friday. Kinda got up late, after the late night partying and rushed to work. So got busy with some meetings and totally forgot about the previous night's incident. Around 2 pm, my cell phone rang. I casually picked it up. "Hi, this is natasha, I met you last night, How you doing?"