Hideaway

I must agree that I have had a pretty good childhood. I had my share of troubles but then again who hasn't? But the bigger picture brings a smile to my face and fills me up with nostalgia. I had everything that a kid could dream off. Parents to trouble (mostly mom), big place to run around, huge garden to dirt my clothes, zillion trees to climb, chickens to chase, dogs to be chased by (bitten, at times), fruits to pluck (steal too :D ), fishes to catch in streams (mistook tadpoles for fish at times), books to read and a heavenly place to grow up in.

The 3 phases of my childhood that I remember extremely clearly are my days in Melli (South Sikkim) - thats where my father used to work, Kaji House (Kalimpong) - where me and my mom lived while my dad came to visit on weekends and Tapoban (Kalimpong) - where I began living as a PG but then became family. Each and every moment of my life back then was an adventure and the best part was that I was a kid to actually enjoy life. I didn't have to worry about the difficulties that my parents had to face to make life work there, but I guess that's why every kid deserves to have a memorable childhood, enjoy being a kid. I guess I was just plain lucky.

As a kid too, I was quite a loner. I enjoyed time in solitude. While living with my parents, I could balance my friend-time and alone-time but when I started living at Tapoban, things were a little different. There were other kids there and one wouldn't be left alone when he wanted to. Though now I look back and see how wonderful a time I had in Tapoban, as a kid back then, I really missed living with my parents. I was in class 4 then. Not too big. And at times I just wanted to be left alone and picture myself with them. But as I said, it wasn't easy being alone in a house filled with kids of various ages. But where there is a will, there is a way. I needed to find a place from where I could keep an eye on what's happening in the house, whether anyone was searching for me and whether I had to make a quick getaway. Kalimpong being a hill station had terraced landscape. We had  our water tank up a couple of terraces to the left of the house, (its a totally different issue that we could never pull water up to it from the "jhora" below :) ).

But I discovered that it was the perfect place to spend some quality time with myself. No one would even dream that there could be someone sitting behind the tank. Had a wonderful view too, sitting above the tank. I could see the whole "Kanchenjunga" range peering behind the house on the left while Kalimpong town to the right.

Took these photos, the last time I visited the place in 2008. It was during the rains, so was mostly cloudy. But there wasn't a single shred of cloud as far as my memories were concerned. Its been ages since I sat there studying, at times angry and at times sad cause I missed home but then its not really too difficult to time travel. All I have to do is close my eyes and I am there, back to the water tank, a kid in class 4, and yet there is difference. I see myself not sad but smiling smugly because I know the future and I know that I must enjoy the moment for I'll be holding on to it for a very long time in the future.

A recovering sniffulus maximus

I stayed home today. Just couldn't get up in the morning. Tonsils were as big as grapes and I realized I was breathing through my mouth. Immediately dropped the idea of going to the office because even if I did manage to drag myself there, I would have felt terrible all day, not worked a bit and would have just extended my agony. Staying home also made me realize how sleep deprived I was. I literally slept all day. Did a little light photoshop thingy in the evening and came up with a stacked photo effect. This is how the final outcome looked :

What say? Not bad eh? I like it :) I am planning to put this in the site header. It should liven up the otherwise bland color scheme I am working towards. I am planning to keep it simple so that it loads fast. But then again I can always rework on the theme of the site because I plan to implement the whole thing using CSS.

A friend of mine is getting married on the 15th of May, ie, the day after tomorrow at Jaipur. Too bad that I won't be able to make it there though. We were roomies in our 4th year at college and had some good times back then. We had actually become good friends right from our first year cause we were in the same section of the hostel. Man! The things we all did back then! I could write epics with the stuff that has happened back in college. The only part about college that I don't like was the God forsaken college. The kind of fun we had is like L-E-G-E-N-D-A-R-Y!

I had never been to Rajasthan in my life, this February being my first opportunity to visit Jaipur as a result of one of my other friend's wedding :) Had an awesome time there. Chandrashekhar and myself roamed all over Jaipur using every possible mode of local transport possible. He also helped me accomplish, probably one of the wildest thing I have ever done in my life :) I want to visit Jaipur again. I had some wonderful moments there and some not so great. I need to go to Rajasthan to overwrite those. I need to make some more good memories there. I don't know if that's gonna happen but I wish it everyday.

Sniffulus Maximus

"My name is Maximus Sniffulus Horrendous, Commander of a sad lot of WBCs, General of a weak resistance, Victim of a common cold, Husband to a throat infection, father to a wet hankerchief and I will have my medicine this week or the next!" - Inspired by Ron Howard's Gladiator

The common cold is extremely common to me. A slight change of weather and I am leaking like a flower pot. And then there are certain places where I am in a state of perennial "sniff sniff". My four years in college at Chiplun went mostly sneezing. And the funny thing was, I stepped into New Bombay (the train/bus crossed Panvel) and my cold magically cured.
 
 My roomies know how many handkerchiefs I have wasted during my days in college. And now the legacy continues. My colleagues are traumatized by my affinity to it and are scared shit that I might spread the joy around :P. It had once reached such a critical situation that I could actually scare them with it :)
 
Anyways, thing is I am really feeling very sick thanks to the stupid cold. And worse is the fact that I cannot miss office this week :(

Padwal/Parwal

We are pretty famous in office for having the weirdest discussions ever. Right from religion, politics to vegetables. This entry is regarding a debate we had about a certain vegetable called Padwal (Potol in Bengali). I like to consider myself a pure non-vegetarian (doesn't mean I am cruel to animals and support people wearing fur. So PETA activists sod off). Now occasionally my Mom has this brilliant idea of feeding me vegetables (apparently for a wholesome diet). There is an extended list of vegetables I don't like but Padwal (or that's what I call it) definitely belongs to the top 3 most hated vegetables.

So last week, Nabdu Anna, Mr Doubtfire and myself were eating lunch when NA noticed that I was looking at my food with a face that resembled a man with no hope in life. The reason was obvious, I had Padwal for lunch. And that is how the discussion began. I said what I was eating was Padwal while the other 2 insisted that padwal was a vegetable that was long and no where resembled the thing that lay in my lunch box. To make matters worse they had no name for it. We also confused it with another similar looking vegetable called Tinda. I suggested that they were confusing Padwal with Turai. We decided that we would go to the vegetable market near the office and solve the mystery once and for all. It never happened.

This weekend while shopping with my mom I had the brilliant idea of photographing what I called Padwal and showing it to the guys. And that's what I did today. Well when I showed them what I meant by padwal they would still not believe. To complicate matters, Ninja Hattori came in and introduced the Marathi name for the same. So now not only were we arguing about what it is called , we were also arguing about what it is called in Hindi and Marathi. A quick google search was done to make matters clear. Weirdly what google threw up sided with the guys. I was pretty amazed to see that Padwal was actually this long looking thingy (it struck me in a few seconds that I knew it by the name chichinga). One expressing my opinion there was a second round of explosion telling me that it is probably called chichinga in Bengali (which was partially true).

But then Mr. Doubtfire made a wonderful discovery on wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingual_list_of_Indian_vegetables,_spices_and_grains
This cleared all our doubts and queries. The mystery unraveled in the following manner. What I was calling PADWAL was actually PARWAL and Padwal is also known as chichinga. So basically in some weird contorted way we were all right all along. Now as a Bong, a few things confuse me when Hindi is concerned (in spite of the fact that I have been speaking hindi almost all my life). As far as pronunciation is concerned, "R" (raw) and "D" (daw) does get a little confusing at times. I will not go into the other confusions I have in Hindi tonight :). That is a very long story!

It is weird how this sad piece of vegetable has got me amused to the extent that I actually dedicated a blog entry to it. Damn! Though my feelings toward it hasn't changed by an iota. I hated it and I shall continue to hate it.

Blyaaaah!!

I am just not getting a start tonight, It's 12:30 in the night and I am listening to U2's Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get Out Of and that's how I feel right now. I think sleep is the best solution at such times :)

I had a good monday. Got a lot of work done. I am getting a feel of the project now which is making me pretty happy about the whole thing. I guess the complete picture will clarify once I meet the customer. But then again, nothing beats the confidence of going completely prepared for a meeting.

Seriously, nothing's coming out. It's absolutely hopeless trying any harder.

And thus ends the weekend

Ok! I have no idea how the day just zoomed by! And it amazes me how I have got nothing done today. I was supposed to write (didn't even decide on a topic), work on the site design (got a little work done here, learnt some new tricks in photoshop), try out some experimental shots (managed to just charge the batteries :P ). Though I did manage to finally learn to play the lead of Wicked Game by Chris Isaak. Felt good :D

Met up with a friend after almost a year. I had last met her at her wedding where I was charged for the crime of being the most under-dressed person. It was once again proved that Apeejayites bump into each other at the weirdest places. We ended up meeting another friend and incidently I had last met her at her wedding. It was good catching up on stuff.

A new week begins tomorrow and I expect some more action. I had a good week :). I had a good beginning to my new project. Finally got my appraisal done (Still not decided as to whether I am satisfied with the results). Our Chairman, Dr. Shilowbhadra Banerjee thinks that I am good at communication and I need to make more use of the skill (I took it as a compliment cause when a person like SB says it, I guess it means something). A google would explain why I think so. I was finally satisfied with the amount of salsa I practiced this week :), joined back gym.

PS: This heat is seriously killing me and inspite of trying a lot I couldn't wish my mom a happy mother's day.

Mother's Day

Couldn't work much on the site today :( Hopefully will get some work done tomorrow. Saturday was brilliant as ever. The day just flew by. I had thought of putting something a little more creative on the weekends but after an extended salsa session, I just too freakin' tired to think much. The practice helped. Remembered a lot more steps than usual :) Plan to start different combinations within a couple week. I was supposed to go and find out about the swimming but that has not happened. Though I did find out about the new Front Street that has opened up at Nerul, sector 6. Its near the Nerul - Palm Beach crossing. They have awesome baked stuff and Italian food (I am not a very big Italian food fan but I am trying to acquire the taste and as a result I am saying they are good based on someone who actually likes it). I confused Fresh Lime with Sweet Lime and ended up having "Mosambi" juice with Apple pie. I know its a pathetic combination but I had no way out.

It's Mother's Day tomorrow. I get very uncomfortable on such days, mostly cause I don't know what to do about it. Like everyone, I do stuff for her all the time, but to make a day out of it makes me feel very pressurized. Celebrating your mother for a day is something I can relate to. I am just a little weird that way. I don't know whether its a guy thing. I haven't really heard any of my male friends celebrate a Father's day or a Mother's day. But my female friends are usually very excited about it and they seem to know exactly what to do. You would think that I would want to learn to celebrate from them but then again it doesn't come natural and I would probably just end up making my Mom uncomfortable. I would rather just be there for her when she wants someone to talk to or chauffeur her around to the weirdest places just cause she can buy things at a discount. :) Makes more sense to my stone age brain :)