Delhi-Dehradun-Roorkee

3/12/9
0615: The meru cab driver in accentuated kannada/hindi best known to him screams over the phone about my address..

0705: I am on my way, sleepy eyes, wet hair from the remains of an incomplete bath.

0815: BIAL

0900: Reading about the best Peking Duck haunt in China courtesy the latest issue of the Outlook Traveler and dreaming about butter chicken in Delhi/Roorkee [foo-llucinating]

0955: Kambakht Ishq, I would say Kambakht Kismat since KI is the only movie running aboard my Kingfisher flight; here my iPod comes to the rescue.

1355: Terminal 1D at Delhi airport can be accessed only by lifts, no wonder PKR had nice things to say about it ;). Muchhar Singh from CISF says the boarding pass printout from the Kingfisher kiosk needs to be stamped by the airlines, I argue there had been no need when I had boarded at Bangalore, but to no avail.

(to be contd...)

Paperback Rider

Another trip - Bombay this time - another paperback to read through.

Every trip is as much as joy as pain. Another 3 years and nobody will be around PG, CJ, MS, KKD, MB and everybody else will be gone - swallowed up in TIME.

The End cometh

But, the Paperback Rider doth ride on..

Here and there..

Three long weekends, one has almost lazed by :) what do I do with the other two? Goa? Pune? Kerala?

I don't feel like doing much, in fact I dont feel like writing further..

The week in sports

Work and laziness have conspired to keep me away while much has happened. After the promising start to the season Arsenal have lots to both Manchester clubs in the space of one week - playing better football than both teams but lacking the incisiveness and luck to score out their opponents.

The US Open has been exciting - Murray and Roddick the surprise early exits among the top seeds while the rest have managed to hold fort albeit a few scares.

Excitingly Sutil has P-2 in todays Monza GP behind Hamilton and ahead of Raikkonen - go Adrian show Giancarlo what he is missing !!

Ohh I almost ignored this, but England ignored Croatia in scoring a 5-1 victory at Wembley last Wednesday - which went some way in resurrecting "English" pride after the ignominy of failing to qualify for Euro when they suffered defeat at the hands of Croatia on the same pitch two years ago.

As the river flows..

So does time..but I seem to be getting nowhere.

I still have the same questions - yet no answers on the horizon.

This and That..

The last week has been fairly eventful.

The trip to Tiruchirapalli for starters - almost crash landed at Chennai, tasted sumptuous biriyani that Paramount served, stayed at a 3-star hotel, ate Tamil Nadu's version of Mughlai paratha fondly called Ceylon Paratha and had a bumpy ride all the way back to Bangalore thanks to Kingfisher's low end ATR planes: all this and more in less than 72 hrs.
Thankfully, all these did much more to soothe my nerves after my traumatic experience of watching Love Aajkal - the lesser said the better; same goes for the buffet lunch at Copper Chimney.

Arsenal thumped a lowly Everton at Goodison Park 6-1, heartening for sure - but there is much to come and much to conquer yet.
Feder and Nadal lost at the Montreal Master's while Murray clinched the title as well as the 2nd spot in the ATP rankings finally breaking the Fedex-Nadal duopoly.

Swine Flu deaths and suspected cases are on the rise in Bangalore - 5 as of today morning. Sadly that is the reason I haven't watched Public Enemies at PVR yet.

I took 1.30 hours to reach office today - talk about Moronic Monday..

Is this what we've become..

http://imgur.com/APBOX.jpg

Random Rants

Played soccer with the guys after long time on a wonderful Bangalore Sunday evening.
Missed two dollies :(

England have the upper hand in the second Ashes test at Lords, though the wonderful rearguard action from Clark and Haddin would give Strauss and his boys some cause for worry tonight.

Moronic Monday looms large on my mind..

Irresistible

I had to post this..

http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/but_if_we_started_dating_it

The Sea

The waves splash all around me,

Silent and unmindfully

Crashing and churning my mind

Pushing the distant horizon far, far behind

I have come away

Drawn by the endless and the soulless 

I sigh into the dark sea

Wondering what will become of you and me.

T20 World Cup: Best Commentator Award

Wasim Akram

"..You should not ball "No-Ball" in 20-20 because then you will get free hit.."

When Umar Gul bowled a "no-ball" to Kevin Pitersen at the Oval

Sucker of a weekend

Arsenal keep loosing, this time to Chelsea, but I still have faith in Wenger.

Played TT on the weekend with KAM and SD and discovered that my left knee doesn't really allow me to have a go on the top-spin.

If work goes fine will watch Monsters vs Aliens sometimes one of these weekday nights.

The best part of the weekend was this. I got a basic reader membership along with the magazine plan but alas I have no time to read.

Reading: 1> India a wounded civilization by V.S. Naipaul
2> The Associate by John Grisham

Realization

People think I hate everyone around me, what they don't realize is that I am the one all around me.

NOTHING

Have a call in 17 mins. time. A lot has happened but work and travel have pushed me away from this blog. Anyways Tioman Island was awesome and I am back to work..deadlines to be met this week and I am still getting nowhere.

For the past two days the concept of doing NOTHING{due credits to Office Space} has been on my mind :(..

Jaunty Jackpole - Ubuntu 9.04 beta! - Part 1

I upgraded from 8.10 to 9.04 beta last weekend. Graphics are awesome especially the new notification window. Opening and closing windows is a tad slow hope that improves on April 23rd.

Watch out for more updates..

Shit Happens!!

I have had no luck for two weeks.

Roger Federer kamikaze-d again against Djokovi in the Miami Open after winning the first set and smashing his racquet along the way. Liverpool lost to the much hated Chelsea at home 1-3. Arsenal though have recovered nicely to with the return of Adebayor, Fabregas and Walcott.

The ELECTIONS are coming and this time I really have no idea whats going around they I have a faint intent in my heart to vote - maybe its the in thing nowadays. Work has been killing, especially more since I don't feel like doing any of it.

Booked tickets to Pune for 24th April, trying hard to convince CJ/ID to join us. Spoke to SB{Dimpu} after years -felt nice, guess I will meet him up while during the trip.

Have been experimenting with music a lot lately; bought Neil Young and ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND last week. Neil Young's rendition of "Down by the River" has me floored.

Reading nothing nowadays -feeling extremely frustrated. Shit!! nothing seems to be happening.

Federer vs Murray

The Federer vs Murray Indian Wells semi-final is coming live on Start Sporst right now. The on-court camera angles are pathetic unlike the Slams but that will have to do..

Yeah its 2.00 am on a Sunday morning :)

Set 1: Federer 2 - Murray 3*
Murray just served out at love. Its 4-2 in his favour right now.
Set 1: Federer 3 - Murray 4*
Murray wraps up the first set 6-3 with a double break.
Go Fed go, stop crying and start winning..

Whoa, Federer breaks Murray's in the first game of the second set.
Set 2: *Federer 2 - Murray 1
And Murray breaks back - 2 all now in the second set. Murray to serve..
Set 2: *Federer 2 - Murray 3
Long service game here Federer on advantage..
Set 2: Federer 3 - Murray 3*
Federer is up 40-0 on Murray's serve..40-30 now..will he won't he???
He does!! Federer to serve at 4-3.
Set 2: Federer 5 - Murray 3*
Set 2: *Federer 5 - Murray 4
And Federer wraps it up 6-4.

Set 3 Murray to serve..
Set 3: Federer 1 - Murray 1*
Murray double faults at 30-40. He holds..
Set 3: *Federer 2 - Murray 1
And Murray does it again he breaks Federer twice to clinch the 3rd and the match. Extraordinary number of unforced errors from the Master, he must do something about his final set concentration it happened in Wimbledon and the Australian
Open and it has happened again here at the Indian Wells.

Nadal vs Roddick coming up - the second semi-final. Pray, Roddick manages to pull
out the upset of the year.

GULAAL

Went to PVR-Forum to catch Gulaal yesterday evening and boy oh boy! Bollywood has arrived.

The story revolves around an ex Rajput scion's {Kay Kay Menon as Dukibana} dream of a "Rajput Rajasthan" or "Rajputana" and his attempts to control University youth and politics for the "greater cause": a book-wormish cowardly Rajput youth Dileep Singh, {Raj Singh Chaudhary} becomes his chief weapon in this quest.

Dileep's metamorphosis into the angry "smoking-barrels Rajput" is played with aplomb by the actor and handled magnificently by the director. KKM thou steals the show with his thunderous performances as the Rajput leader urging fellow men to rise in revolt. The scene where he exhorts all assembled Gulaal smeared Rajputs to rise up for their motherland is reminiscent of "V for Vendetta". Gulaal's terrific use of colours in the narration draws inspiration from Trois couleurs: Rouge: showcasing emotions and moods with astounding simplicity.

AK has mastered the art of storytelling weaving sub plots into the main one in a masterly fashion - Dileep's frustrated idealist, Cambridge returned "His Royal Highness" roommate {Abhimanyu Singh}, Dileep's "lady love"{Ayesha Mohan} who uses him to exact revenge for loosing the elections all do more than justice their meaty roles. Brilliant cinematography and unique song lyrics from Piyush Mishra woven with music by Indian Ocean typical to such a dark film leave you mesmerized and riveted to your seat.

The frenzied "shoot 'em up" climax is a tad clumsy but the rest of the film more then compensates for the glitch: even the first half does drag through a little bit in an effort to weave the complex web of intrigue expected in a political film.

This is Hindi cinema at its best - go get colored, go watch it!!

An even better Sunday

Aston Villa went down to Spurs at home 2-1. Arsenal pushed up the leagued table as a result into fourth position and look good to qualify for Europe next year with Theo and Eduardo back in the squad.

Went with T-didi/S-da/Nina to Copper Chimney. Unfortunately my adorable niece couldn't enjoy the lunch much because of a running cold we however, did. The seekh kebabs were awesome and so was the rumali roti - which had a beautiful aroma and flavour to it; strange though I certainly wasn't complaining. The colour of the ghosth biryani didn't inspire confidence in me since I prefer the zaffrani Lucknow-i biryani but nevertheless lived up to the high standards set by the kebab platter. We even got a 15% discount on the food bill :)).

In the evening I got my first taste of the early summer-Bangalore rain this year and loved it :).

S-da had ordered "Fish called Wanda" and "Jaane tu ya jaane na" from seventymm.com. Since I had seen the first one we went with the Hindi movie. While the much school-girlish Genelia D'Souza tortured us with her semi-south-indian-HINGLISH-mix of dialogues, glaring eyes and occasional good looks, Imran Khan inspired by his uncles performances in Dil Hain ke Maanta Nahin played the chocolate boy hero only to transform himself to Rajhore ke Rathore in the end: confused, I say, this generation. Anyways we had a good laugh watching the sub-titles more than jokes that were cracked in the movie.

Reading: The Brethren - John Grisham

Super Saturday!!

Liverpool thrashed a nervy, scrappy 10 man Manchester United 4-1 while Arsenal lead Blackburn Rovers by 1-0 at half time at the Emirates.

Update
Arsenal trounced Blackburn, black and blue by a margin of 4-0; they were however prevented from a more facile victory by the "brilliant" Bendtner who squandered 6 goal scoring chances in a space of fifteen minutes.

Whatta Week!!

Has been a happening week I dare say.

Work has been killing me - I missed my first deadline since I joined.

Wednesday was Holi, as usual I didn't have the day off from work :(. Folks at work played - thankfully I remained unscathed by virtue of being "little-known" at work. People in the "pen" though, rocked as usual. Someone started playing "Rang Barse Bheege Chunarwaali" full blast; then of course they proceeded to murder each other with other colours. Great place to work .. eh ;)!!

Dragged myself through Delhi-6 yesterday wondering how the same guy laid claim to have directed Rang De Basanti. In fact it was so disgusting that I am not gonna write a single more word about it.

The best part of the week has been that I talked/g-chat-ed with a lot of people - RS, CJ, ID, MS, RS, Kakima, SB, JM. Have weekend plans for lunch with T-didi/S-da/Nina at a some exciting new place - after having passed S-da's rigorous quality standards on burrp.com.

Oh, and if you still didn't know Liverpool had some Spanish omelets on Tuesday night when they whipped Real Madrid 4 - 0. Yeah dude 4 - 0!! Hope Man-U meet with the same fate when they come up against Liverpool at Old Trafford. Arsenal meanwhile managed to scrape through against Roma in the highest scoring penalty shootout in the history of Champion's League.

Pain

As my skin turns pale
As my senses dim
The slow sweet sensation kicking in
Struggling hard to keep my mind
Futile attempts to grab the time behind
Questions pour in, so does fear
Is it near?
Is this the end, the end of the road bend?