Well this post was supposed to come sometime on Monday/Tuesday, but was unfortunately not able to write it, hence the delay. Last week, I had a long weekend because of Thanksgiving. Yes folks, I follow the client’s schedule of holidays. So taking advantage of it, I decided to head to Mumbai early and then take mom to Nathdwara, Rajasthan to Lord Krishna’s temple. So yea, I got in early Thursday morning, unpacked and then packed again and left for Rajasthan. I have been visiting this temple since I was a kid, riding on my dad’s shoulders. We actually try and go there once every year, sometimes even more than once, but then it all depends on whether He wants to come there or no. (Ok that is my mom’s way of thinking). We took the train to the station nearest to our destination, Falna, since there is no direct train to Nathdwara. So we got down at Falna at around 8am, Friday morning and from there we had to share a cab with 7 other people to get there. Now right across me, a really cute girl was sitting along with her mom. She was listening to music on her mobile, when the driver started the radio. She looked pretty annoyed that she could not listen to her songs anymore. I just gave her a smile and then we never spoke a word. In the western world, I would have followed up with something more. But here I decided to apply the rule “In India, behave like Indians”. So I just took the book I was reading and after a while fell asleep. We finally arrived at our destination at around 10:30am.

The great part of Nathdwara is that this place has not changed even after so many years. The last time I was there was like 4 years back when I had come to India for my winter break. We quickly found ourselves a lodge, showered and went for the darshan. The temple is like most other temples in India, except I feel it is the atmosphere which separates the others from this. There are only 8 darshans during the day, most which only last for 20 mins or so. So when the main temple doors are thrown open, a throng of devotees just rush into and fill up the temple hall. It becomes very hard to even stand in just rushing and pushing. But fortunately this time I was able to get all the possible darshans without having to really jostle too much for it.

In between the darshans devotees usually wait in the temple square. I like sitting there, because for some reason a unique calmness comes over me. So while I was sitting there waiting for the next darshan, I read a few boards which said don’t spit, which were rather surprising. I mean who will spit in a temple.. but they were there. So while I was sitting, a group of monkeys descended on the top of the temple square and decided to hang out with us. There were people sitting below a couple of monkeys, when all of sudden they decided to pee on them. It was very funny. I could help but laugh. But then a sad irony stuck me. Indian males and monkeys are no different. Even they pee in any open street. Atleast monkeys have an excuse of being animals. I wonder what excuse do we have?

We wrapped all our darshans by Saturday noon and then headed our way back to Mumbai. The other thing I have observed is Indian Railways is very unfriendly to women customers. I have seen their toilets and I mean.. they are just pathetic. I don’t like to go there myself, but then when you got to go, you got to go.

The remaining part of the weekend was spent watching Dhoom 2, football match between Chelsea and Manchester United and packing. Overall it was a very busy weekend, but I enjoyed every bit of it.

Yup..thats what I have been upto. I have been spending a whole lot of my time in the office and just trying to catch up with all the days work. It is sort of hard when you have to go through everything all 4 of your team members touch and then deal with management issues in India and also the US. So far, I am enjoying the work, though by the time I get home I am just tired and dont feel like writing anything.

A lot has happened during the last few days. I, finally, have internet at my place. I cant believe i spent 3 weeks without internet, TV and radio. Obviously the weekends really sucked since I didnt have anything to do. Though last weekend, I did catch up with the movie Don. All I can say is “shahrukh khan sabko yeda banake peda khata hai” (shahrukh khan fools everyone and gets away with the prize). The movie was good so that was the only interesting thing I did last weekend.

Firday, we went to annual company party. The party was really nice. They had the dance floor and alright music. I danced to a couple of songs and had a good time. Also saw quite a few colleagues, getting all high and wasted.

Yesterday, my buddy and me went out to check an electronic exhibition in the city. I was hoping I would get to see some really cool gadgets and some nice computers. But the show turned out to be a damn squib. So after that, me and my buddy decided to go to Chandni Chowk. Oh.. in between we walked by the famous Eden Gardens. All I can say is the stadium from outside looked like it needed a lot of cleaning and repairing. I seriously wonder how the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) are maintained. We walked to Chandni Chowk and this place is full of computer accessories. You can probably get anything that you are looking for here. Also we were approached by a couple of men who were selling pirated CD’s and asked us if we were interesting in getting them. One of them even followed us for like 5 mins. We got a couple of things from there and then decided to go to Russell Street. The ice cream place over there is just awesome. We had our usual Black Forest Sundae and then decided to check out a bookstore called Crossword. This place was just awesome. I got myself just one book, Losing my Virginity, by Sir Richard Branson. I have been reading about him since quite sometime and I think I am very much influenced by him. So after we got the books, we decided to have Momo. Momo’s are basically tibetan dumplings and they taste awesome. To get more information on how to make them, please go here. Unfortunately they were out chicken momo, so we decided to just return back and try out the momo near our neighborhood. But sadly they were out of it also :(. So then we finally decided to grab some dinner and head home.

I think Fridays drinking and yesterdays ice cream have given me sore throat. Right now I can barely speak and forget about swallowing. I think I am going to go and get some medication for it and then SLEEP.

India is a huge country and with many newsworthy things going on right.. so I was pretty surprised when I opened CNN to read the following headlines

Indian eunuchs help collect taxes

I guess Americans just find us weird and I guess this must be for their daily morning laughter. Here is the snapshot of today morning’s headlines on CNN.

Click on photo to enlarge

As sit here on the bed listening to classic rock, I can’t help but miss a few people in my house. I don’t understand why they do come in your life only to leave you feeling much more miserable than before. I have never felt this alone in my entire life. Sure enough, I have my friends but even they have observed a marked difference in me. I have become a lot quieter than before. It is as if everything that was near me has been taken away or somehow all the fun was sucked away and now I am just left with loneliness. I don’t know why I am writing this. I guess it is just one of those moments where things just come out. I hate being like this. I seriously need some vacation time or time away from being alone. It is not like the break-up is having an effect on me or anything like that. I guess whatever happened has happened for good. Or it is not like I am missing someone in my life. But I do feel emptiness, something that I haven’t felt in a long time. This, I guess is probably the darkest post of my blog. Hopefully will be the only dark post.

Once again I am extremely sorry for not being able to update the blog for quite a long time. I try and be regular but it is just that I have been very much caught up with work that I dont really get a chance to update. Anyways…

Here is the update.. Diwali with folks was awesome. Though, I wished my Dad didnt have to go abroad a few days before that. I had fun doing the puja, incidentally this was my first time. It was good to have some quiet time with the family though. I also got a chance to catch up with some old friends and also got to eat lots of good food. So all in all a very happy diwali.

I returned to Kolkata on the 24th and the first thing I did was signed the apartment lease papers and got myself a place to stay. The rest of the week was spent in cleaning and buying things for my new place. So now I have a apartment of my own and hopefully I will turn that into some kind of party paradise. There are though plenty of things that I need in my apartment right now, like it needs a music system, a TV and may be a XBOX 360 and last but not the least it needs broadband internet connection (which I will be getting this weekend HOPEFULLY). Ohh OH!! I forgot a nice couch for myself.

On the work front I am learning new things everyday and it feels really good. My team is ready to take on the project and I am feeling pretty confident that I will be able to deliver what has been asked of me.

Other than that.. India lost once again to Australia.. it seems like we can never win against them and got ourself booted out. Ok.. lastly, I hope I can update more frequently, until the next post adios.