Category: personal

santo
Originally uploaded by cargocult.

Anish flew back to boston. The last two months have been great because of him. Had a real nice time with him, santosh and gang. Through him i came to know so many cool people.

It was last week when he planned a trip to marine drive. And it starts raining when we reach there. We get soaked to our bones. Have kala jamuns and chamchams at some dairy. The menu had a lot of cool sounding mithais, like bunty babli, rani bhog, etc.etc. but they dint have any of them in stock. So we had be happy with kjs and ccs. But must say that they were really tasty.

anish
Originally uploaded by cargocult.

Strolled along the seaface, when lightning started bolting here and there. Thank god none of us were wearing underwired bras, or we would have been sizzle fried. I was trying to find a restaurant i had heard of which serves amazing food at really cheap rates, called Crystal. It’s somewhere near the chowpatty overbridge. But due to the heavy rains and the uninformed taxi drivers and watchmen, we couldn’t find the place. Aneesh meanwhile called a friend and we all got into a taxi to her place near bombay hospital.

He got a bottle of wine as present for her. We got on the old wooden lift, on our way to her place. It was a old pushtaini kind of place. She welcomed the four of us, giving us towels to dry off. And within minutes we were all chatting like old friends. She teaches law at KC college and is a practicing lawyer, taking social issues etc. Left liberal all the way. And she had won the best director in Mood Indigo 1978. She also had an activist couple as guests. They are working in UP on caste related problems. We all sat down around the wine and the vodka that followed, discussing socio economic problems.

On a side note, i am a little wary of such activists. More so with those who have given up their whole life for issues. I think that great passion for something makes one irrational to a degree. When something comes up which shakes their belief system, the fear that their life has gone to waste, makes them really illogical. But I controlled myself and humored them with yeses.

Time flew fast and we could barely manage to catch the last local from churchgate.

p.s. there is a small restaurant called Rehmania, behind the Delhi Darbar, near Bombay hospital (marine lines). They serve mallu maapla style food. The prices are so ridiculously low and the taste is 100% authentic. highly recommended.

Anurag or genie as we called him, has posted accounts of a trek we 2 did way back. How he has remembered each detail is beyond me.
He’s in IIMA right now. Wish he would find a job in mumbai when he finishes. Call him anytime with the wierdest of plans and he would be ready for it. Just like a genie :).

Started exercising after a long time. The coach who is called Rambo by everyone seems to be hell bent on making me rambo junior.
Also had a steam bath. Yeah ….i am living life kingsize.
Felt like a boiled chicken afterwards. Am a little apprehensive about trying the sauna.

On a sidenote a baby squirrel was discovered in our flat. Very frightened at first, gradually started nibbling an assortment of peanuts and various dals. The part of me which has always wanted a pet was starting to feel warm. Yesterday my roomie announces that he has taken it out and “freed” it. First I felt like kicking him, but his arguement was we would all have felt bad if it died on us. And that it can now go back to his own home. More likely it’ll become a crow’s meal. But my roomie has dispensed himself of the burden by doing a “good” deed. And I am happy that I was not involved in the decision. Is there a better word than ‘selfish’ for this?

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taken by aneesh uploaded by kaa.

Venue – Rajmachi
Team – Aneesh, Santosh, Vijay and I
via – karjat (local train)- khandpe (ST Bus)- walking walking to the fort

Left the village at around 11 am. Encountered the haunted imli tree. And the hiphop loving fisherman.

The clouds were playing a game of “will rain”..”will not rain”. Soon we were boiling in our sweat. And we lost the trail of white painted boulders. The option was either to come back to the last white boulder and search for the right path, or make our own. No points for guessing what we did. Wading through thorn encrusted guard shrubs and tripping over trip vines we walked on.

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taken by aneesh uploaded by kaa.

We reached a plateau with a dense forest. Even saw a small deer. And also realized that we were at the wrong side of the fort. From where the enemy could only climb using a monitor lizard. But there was no lizard in sight. And it was already nearing 4.
So without much ado we turned back. half an hour downhill we met a villager who told us, “if you had walked for 5 mins more you would be in the village kondana, from where the fort was a further 5 mins.” We tore each others hair out to let our frustration subside. Saved some barber money as a side effect.

And the sun was going down fast. We saw another village which seemed much closer than the one we had started. So we started walking towards it. But soon we lost the small trail made my wood gatherers. It was a free hike downhill grasping shrubs and trees to break our speed. Then came a giant waterfall. I could momentarily taste my heart in my mouth seeing the sheer drop. But we managed to climb down cliffhanger style.
Pure rock climbing.

It was the second most dangerous/adventurous trek of my life. The first being the one to harishchandragad. Where we were trying to climb a rock cleavage. 4 people at different levels. And the top one says, ” turn back there is no way ahead”. And the rocks started crumbling falling down the person below. And there were crys of ” gaonvalon bachao” and ” helilcopter lekar aao”…etc.

you can see rest of the pics here.

She remembers a few words of malayalam. So she assumes that her real parents must be from Kerala.

Adopted when she was 2, from somewhere in Coimbatore. By european parents.

Phd in microchemistry. Now in india doing NGO work, for TB patients.

She still has to figure what she wants to do with her life. Continue research work or join WHO.

She cooked us seafood spaghetti, with prawns and clams.

“Each human is an elephant, individually. And the rest are blind men.”

Monkeys hornier then their brothers started mating over longer seasons than the customary august september. Being active longer, they needed extra fat on their red asses. There could be days without food trying to impress a femonk.
Their gathering skills started to improve. So did the related parts of the brain. And they began to change. Not their features , but their attributes.

Their heads got bigger. They stayed young longer. The life expectancy increased from 25 years to 35.The offsprings of these ‘mutants’ also had these attributes. Gradually their population started to increase. As predators found them hard to pray upon. And they had excellent survival techniques.
With each generation they became raunchier.

They took over.

The world became their mating dance.

So dance on.

Shifted to our new flat. Great view of the lake from all windows. Rooms big enough to play cricket. And a big hole in my pocket.

I hope things will get more stable now. It’s been a long time I have been wandering here and there. Thanks first to vishal and then to dagia for enduring our presence for quite some time. (I am bad at showing sincere gratitude to people. I only say thanks either when i don’t mean it, or when the other person really expects it.)
My friend KP (kumarendra) got into a verbal duel with the security officer of his company, who happened to be a retired Colonel. The colonel refused to believe people could stay unauthorised in an IIT hostel, that too for years, what with terrorist threats and all.

That’s one thing good about iit, it knows when to relax and when to be strict. Though that may be changing for the worse with every passing year. I hope it doesn’t.

It’s ironical, a post about leaving IIT, being typed from IIT. Internet access at our flat will take 2-3 days.

3 books read-

“The curious incident of the dog in the night time.” – Read kekre’s copy, which Ranchu had brought. So had to finish it at a stretch, cover to cover in 5 hours. It’s unputtable.

“Invisible Monsters” – By chuck pahlunuik (spellliing?..) author of fight club. The style is like fight club, though i have only seen, not read FC. Maybe it’s the content, but i did’nt like it.

“7 times 6 is 43” – kiran nagarkar’s marathi novel translated into english. It’s too good. Highly recommended.

Being a freelancer has it’s ups and downs. Lot’s of free time in the last 10 days. But problem is i can’t decide if it’s a up or a down. Very bittersweet, coz on one hand total freedom, lots of sleep, novels, t shirt paintings..etc..etc.. But no income :).

That’s going to change today …Confused if i should be happy or sad.

Yes I know you want to see it. Here they are.

Happy, you must be, like everyone, from the media to the masses. Everyone likes to see someone (or shall we say something) else slip, and what better then a model.
A professional who uses his/her body.
Then why do people and the law prosecute a guy who sells MMS clips on ebay. Because it is illegal? The newspapers are smarter, as they get away with it, by placing appropriate blocks of black.

Is the actual “thing” more shameful than the whole episode?

People’s reactions over the episode are being published. And the discussion is definitely not about the printability of the matter.

Some thing the models are actually attention mongers. Maybe some of them are. But then the whole thing is even more pathetic, as they have made puppets out of media and the people.

And even from a commercial point of view, one of the newspapers can position itself as Moral, by not printing it. And publicising that fact (of not printing it).