Author: Akshay

I am Akshay Varma, a Project Manager who likes writing, taking pictures, and listening to music. I am mainly work with projects in transition and onboarding of new client projects and business transformation. I like writing about current affairs and how they effect me, my personal life and anything and everything which comes to my mind. I like landscape and bird photography. Humans as photographic subject don't attract me :). This is a personal blog and thoughts written here are my own and do not reflect/ represent those of the organization(s) that I am with in professional or personal capacity.

Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous

~ Akshay ~ 11 Comments

I found this on CNN. Pretty interesting I should say..

“If Kanye West were to walk into the British Raj’s dining room and order dinner, it would cost the rapper about $17.50. But since the restaurant is delivering — from Wales to New York — it’s going to cost a bit more.

For a feast of onion bhajees, chapati breads, biryanis, pappadums, a specially prepared fish dish and vegetables on the side, the bill will top $3,900, plus travel and accommodation for the restaurant’s head chef.

The meal was requested for West and seven guests by a music promotion company, the restaurant said Sunday. The company had previously ordered food from the restaurant near Cardiff, Wales, for an after-show party for a Snoop Dogg concert in London.

But this is different. Normally, they don’t deliver outside a 3-mile radius of the restaurant, which is about 150 miles west of London.

“I was horrified when I heard about this request because of the distance involved,” said the restaurant’s head waiter, Tarik Mohammed. “It’s a long way, and our reputation is on the line. We are doing every thing to make sure the food gets there safely and every thing is aboveboard.”

The meal will be prepared, cooled, shrink-wrapped and packed in dry ice in the British Raj’s kitchens and — along with head chef Kaysor Ahmed — will be helicoptered from Wales to London’s Heathrow Airport on Tuesday.

From there, the chef is to hop a flight to New York — monitoring the food’s temperature all the way — clear customs, and head for Manhattan, where the meal is to be served during a meeting Wednesday.

The fee was arrived at by estimating the restaurant’s takings for two evenings, the time Ahmed will be away, Mohammed said.”

Holi

~ Akshay ~ 15 Comments

This weekend I celebrated Holi after 6 long years. I never played holi when I was in the US even though the Indian Student Association did organise some awesome holi parties in the university. To be honest, I wasnt so keen on playing holi since I had not played in a long time and plus most of the people whom I grew up playing holi with, were no longer present. The apartment complex where I stay, did organize a holi function so I decided to just go down and see how things were. After having jalebi and dhokla (come on people, I am Gujju after all) I decided to take leave and made up my mind, I am staying home this holi. I returned home to watch some TV (ohh dear TV I miss you soo very much, my place in Kolkata does not have one, so every time I am in Mumbai I am just hooked on to it.) There was nothing much going on and I decided to take a peek down the window to see how everyone was enjoying. When I saw all the kids playing holi, I decided I too will go down and enjoy with them. To be honest, it was a blast. I thoroughly enjoyed getting drenching others and applying color to everyone. Well, I wasnt spared either. The ladies in the apartment complex colored me all red. I played holi for a couple of hours after which we decided to play cricket in the afternoon. The evening was spent with meeting old friends and catching up with them. Overall it was a pretty colorful day, it would have been even more colorful had certain people showed up.. but oh well.. there is always next time.

Me all colored (I look weird)

Words

~ Akshay ~ 3 Comments

They have the power to make or break a heart. They have the power to make someone smile or make someone cry. They have the power to make or break a government. I recently discovered the power of words, when I said something that I didnt mean and hurt someone very close to me real bad. I think from now onwards I am going to think before I speak anything. Usually I dont think much before I say anything and I have been told many times to think before saying anything. An arrow released from the bow and words once out of the mouth cannot be brought back. I realize this now and I just hope that someone forgives me.

Accident

~ Akshay ~ 9 Comments

This week so far has been absolutely busy for me. I have been practically living in my office.. morning I am there before anybody on my floor shows up and in the evening I am there until the next day morning. So after working my non-regular hour on Monday evening I was returning home, when me and a colleague of mine got involved in a car accident. It was around 12:30am and we had just dropped a lady colleague and were heading home. We were taking a U-turn and there was a fast approaching truck coming from our left. The truck driver started flashing his head lights, which either our cab driver didnt see or chose to ignore. The truck driver on seeing that the car is still turning, instead of slowing down decided to continue at the same pace and pass through the left side of the road. Unfortunately there wasnt much space for the truck driver to do that and instead of going to the left, he rammed into our car. Since our car was still turning it got hit on the left side.. where I was sitting. I was totally shaken my impact. I hurt my knee and my shoulder, while my colleague was hit on his knee. The truck then hit brakes and then swerved to the right and then tipped over. We were fortunate that in this accident neither party was badly hurt. The truck driver suffered a minor leg cut, while we escaped with some bruises. We were lucky that night, we were in an Ambassador and not an Indica or another small car else it could have been a lot worst. Oh well.. now everytime I pass through the route (which is everyday) I just think of what could have been and how lucky me and my colleague were.

Long time no post

~ Akshay ~ 6 Comments

I have been pretty busy the last couple of weeks (ok I was also lazy some of those days) to post something new. I guess the lazy period is over and now I am back with a small bang. At this very moment at lot of things are going on in my mind.. Life is full of so many choices.. right now I have a choice to walk on the path that I have walked before or do something which I have never done before. Well.. to be more detailed.. to go to the US or no. I have been there and I have walked through that path before. The other option I am right now considering is to find work in Europe. This for me is going to be very new, something which is similar to the path I have taken before, but not the same. The last option would be to stay back and keep working here. This is something I wanted to do until a couple of days ago before I had my first brush with Indian managerial system. I will write about it in some other post.. but after that incident I have sort of lost interest in working here. Lets see though.. I have to decide everything by end of March. I still have sometime to decide but.. I feel it is too less. Oh well..

Parody I wrote

~ Akshay ~ 5 Comments

This is parody of a very popular Hindi song.. I wrote this sometime last year.

ye kyaa huaa, kaise huaa, kab huaa
kyo huaa, jab huaa, tab huaa
chhodo, ye naa poocho

hum kyo, shikawaa kare zoothhaa
kyaa huaa jo ek ek baal tootaa
pantene pro V ka kamaal tha
kuchh naa kuchh to honaa thaa, huaa

ye kyaa huaa, kaise huaa, kab huaa
kyo huaa, jab huaa, tab huaa
chhodo, ye naa poocho

humane dekhaa thaa, sunaa thaa,
par shampoo hume nahi chhodna tha,
baalo ka sacha saathi tha
par ganja to honaa thaa, huaa

ye kyaa huaa, kaise huaa, kab huaa
kyo huaa, jab huaa, tab huaa
chhodo, ye naa poocho

aye ujhde chaman, chal kangi leke ghoome,
inhee galiyon mein jhoome
yahaa baalon ko khonaa thaa
ganja mujhe honaa thaa, huaa

ye kyaa huaa, kaise huaa, kab huaa
kyo huaa, jab huaa, tab huaa
chhodo, ye naa poocho

Who are we living for?

~ Akshay ~ 4 Comments

I have thinking on these lines since last few days now and the more I think the more weird I start feeling about this entire thing. The reason I have started to think this is because of few things that have occured to people whom I know. I will just mention about them in brief here.. but this is how all the thinking started..

A friend of mine used to date this girl in college. It didnt last too long and they decided to call it quits after sometime. After the seperation the girl could not handle the break up well and was seriously sad for quite sometime. Now after 2-3 years later they run across each other and somehow things spark between them and they fall in love again. Now comes the interesting part. The girl’s parents had been pushing her for marriage and she had been reluctant so far about it and now she had added incentive to not get married since she was now in a relationship. So when her family confronts her about the marriage and stuff.. she lets them know about this guy. And then all hell breaks loose. Her parents dont like the guy and she says NO to him. Somehow this time my friend was very much distraught.. cause I think he was really in love with her. But then this leads me to the next question.. who is the girl living for? Herself or her family. She told him she would not be happy with anyone else.. but then she said a NO. I know it would have been tough for her..but then again it ended up heart breaking for both of them.

The other incident happened just a couple of days back. A friend of mine was feeling depressed since last couple of weeks and so yesterday I confronted her. What she told me was shocking.. she recently went threw abortion because her family and her husbands family didnt want to have a child. And I was very much surprised and shocked. I am pretty sure.. that she didnt want to do this.. but then again the circumstances were such that she had to do it. Again it got me thinking.. who is she living for?? Herself or her family. I am probably wrong in thinking this way about this scenario.

People take up jobs in which they have no interest.. their interest is in something all together different.. but yet they do something which does not make them happy. I guess many of them just dont have any options and may be sometimes they dont look for any options. I firmly believe that a person should have a right to live his own life according to his own terms and conditions. But then thats just me.. and I am crazy according to some people and weird according to some. Oh well I am going to end this post here since I have a meeting to attend to.