Blogging taking a back seat

~ Akshay ~ 3 Comments

The last couple of months have been the busiest of my life. I feel I have been stretched too thin and I don’t know what to do. This has come as a very pleasant shock to me. I thought after getting more people on board, I will be able to relax, but as it turns out, I have been working more than before. My mornings start at around 11am and I don’t come home until 2am, the next day. According to a couple of people whom I know, I am going to spoil my health by working like this. I kind of agree with them, but then I don’t really know what else to do. The people whom I have delegated the work are unable to achieve the required results and thus I end up doing their work also. I believe this schedule is going to last until the end of this month and only after it, I may be getting a breather.

Work aside, I celebrated my 25th birthday last Saturday. It was one of the best days of my life. I got home at around 1:30am and found my family awake. They had kept a cake with a candle at the center of the table. We had the cake cutting ceremony and then in the afternoon, I went shopping, got myself some needed clothes. According to someone close to me, I need to change my entire wardrobe, so I indulged in a bit of extra shopping. In the evening, Dad got me an iPod (80GB Video) and mom made some wonderful dinner which included my favorite sabzi and dessert. Overall it was a wonderful birthday and I really enjoyed spending time with my loved ones. I just wish I can spend some more time with my family.. but then I am going to write about it some other time.

Maximum City, Maximum Rains, Maximum Fun

~ Akshay ~ 4 Comments

It all started this morning at around 3-4am. I got up at around at 7 am and saw the sky was grey as ever and it was steadily pouring. At around 8:15am, my brother called saying that the trains are not working and he is coming home. He had left for college early in the morning only to go two thirds of the distance and then return home wet. My colleague was supposed to fly down to Mumbai today morning and she had to cancel her flight. She was on the call with me all through out. I told her that the trains are not working but so far nothing else seems to be effected. Slowly the reports started to come by and certain low lying areas were flooded. My bro was back home and he said lets go to the nearby mall and catch the 10am show. I was like sure. We left our houses only to be surrounded by knee deep water in our area. We decided to watch Awarapan (the movie sucked). After the interval the electricity went off and so after waiting a while, we got our refunded for the movie. In a wa, I feel lucky.. i got to watch half the movie and got paid full money back. While returning we decided to walk through the effected areas to get the first hand view of how bad the things were. What we saw, was something which was very different. Today being saturday, most people had decided to stay home and once the street were flooded almost every one was down enjoying the rains. I guess this only happens in Bombay. Streets had turned into open rivers. There were kids, men, women, husbands, wives, grandmom, grandpa’s all out in the rain enjoying the water filled streets. Some people used to the street to play cricket. It was a festive atmosphere all throught out. The chaiwalas (tea vendors), bhajiawalas did brisk business today. We could see people standing outside at the local eatery grabbing a bite of the hot samosas and bhajias. Inspite of all the fun and frolic, I do feel sad for the people whose houses were filled up with water and also for poor who had basically nothing but a plastic roof on their heads. I saw one man just holding his head and sitting in his little hut with water all around. It is true when a calamity happens, the people who get affected the most are going to be poor.

I took some pictures while we were out in the rain. I forgot to change the resolution and thus the images may appear grainy.






Maximum city

~ Akshay ~ Leave a comment

I am currently in the Maximum City a.k.a Bombay for the weekend and it rains here all day. The temperature is kind of pleasant, not too hot or too old. Just about right. Right now I feel like sitting at the window and enjoying my coffee. Oh well, I am enjoying the rains here. Happy weekend everyone 🙂

Rain is gone

~ Akshay ~ 2 Comments

Well it is no longer raining here.. i wish it rains like it rains in Mumbai. Here it rains for 10 mins and then stops. I don’t understand what the funda is. Locals say that it will start pouring cats and dogs once we get into July. So now I am waiting for that. In the meanwhile, the fan in my room does not work, so everyday I lift the mattress, move it to the living room and sleep there. The fan guy was supposed to get here yesterday, but I am not sure if he had come or no, because i was away in the office recruiting people. Life in the office has become very hectic. I dont know how many things I can manage at the same time. I have new people who are undergoing training, I am getting more people on the board, plus there is regular work and then there is added work in terms of reports and etc. Thus, I have had no time for practically anything else. To be honest, I am enjoying this kind of pressure. Tonight I am hoping I will get the much needed break. I am looking fwd to fly to Mumbai tonight and take a break for 2 days, before I get back on Monday and then prepare for more work. This is not confirmed yet, since it all depends on how things work out today. If everything goes well, I will be on my way back home else I will be staying for another couple of days and then heading back on Friday. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Rain is here

~ Akshay ~ 6 Comments

The rain gods have finally made it to Kolkata. The season’s first official heavy rainfall has begun and there looks no sign of it ending anytime soon. The clouds look grey and dark and it is pouring like anything. The arrival of rains has also brought a fresh set of problem for me. Apparently none of the lights and fans in the bedroom, kitchen and bathroom work, while everything in the living room works perfectly ok. I am writing this post from the bedroom where I still have power to my laptop, but no power for anything else. I will have to call an electrician soon to fix this problem or atleast know what exactly is going on. Also this reminds me that I have to buy an umbrella else life is going to get very wet.

Weekend

~ Akshay ~ 6 Comments

This weekend was one of the bestest weekends I have had in a long time. I reached home Saturday morning at 1:30am, thanks to late arrival at the Mumbai airport. Sometimes I wonder why do I keep flying the 8:30PM flight every 2 weeks?

Saturday was awesome, spent time with my bro, played cricket, got my ass whoooped by him. Then a few friends stopped by in the afternoon and evening. I actually wanted to go out shopping with mom.. but I am broke and thus had to change plans.

Sunday, early morning me and bro, along with other friends, went for a day picnic/trip to Kelwa Beach Resort. We decided to take the bike since bro had to come home for a night cricket game. Along with us, a good friend of mine and his gf also came on the bike. The rest of the guys came by the train. The resort was abt 120-140kms away, so it was a long ride. We reached the resort at around 8:45am in the morning. The resort was very calm and serene. Once we got there, we changed, had breakfast etc and then decided to head to the beach. The beach was very clean. Nothing like Juhu beach or Chowpatty beach with litter thrown around. We entered the water right away, were playing games like water football and frisbee. Some people even started singing later on. After enjoying the salty water of the sea, we decided to the check out the swimming pool in the resort. It was occupied by a beer drinking yuppie group. At first, we decided to wait for them to check out, but then we decided that it isn’t their pool and we should also go in and enjoy. The yuppie group left soon after we entered.

After that we decided to go have lunch and we ran the same yuppie group once again. This time we overheard one female saying how she spend $500 on McLaren and Ferrari souveniers. I think she was kinda showing off that she was a F-1 fan etc.. who knows. But I kinda hate people like that, the ones who think having money makes them special. Anyways, after lunch, some of us dozed off, while some of us got to playing table tennis. It was fun to stay undefeated 7 games in a row. After that we just decided to relax for sometime and then ride home.

The ride back home was equally exhilarating. My bro does not like riding in the dark on the highways and decided he was going to cover as much distance as possible before it got dark. Right from the time we hit the roads, he was flying. I think the top speed he touched was 105-110Kmph/around 70 mph. It was truly an awesome experience, seeing my bro go zig-zag at such high speeds. By the time we got home, I was dead tired.. while bro was super excited to go for his game (which he lost). After having dinner, I packed my bag for the flight back to Kolkata next morning and then just crashed on the bed. All in all it was an awesome weekend.

So much anger in the world…

~ Akshay ~ 6 Comments

As I go sifting through the newspaper, all I see is violence, bloodshed, crying parents, distraught wives and orphaned children. Everyday there is some killing or another. Somewhere there is a genocide being committed, somewhere there is a war being fought, somewhere there is a civil war going on, somewhere there is a jihad going on, and somewhere we have a psycho going nuts.. The end result is the same, innocent blood is being spilled everywhere. As I sit here and write this, I wonder why is there so much anger in our world? I wonder will we ever have peace? According to the historians, this is most peaceful the world has ever been, how is this ever possible I dont understand? May be the time before now was bloody as hell..perhaps life was cheap then and life is cheap now.

Couldn’t help but post this

~ Akshay ~ 5 Comments

I know many of you must have received this as a forward in their emails or must have read it somewhere. I read this on Reddit and couldn’t help but post it here. 🙂

Why I gave up beans
One day I met a sweet gentleman and fell in love.

When it became apparent that we would marry, I made the supreme sacrifice and gave up beans.

Some months later, on my birthday, my car broke down on the way home from work.

Since I lived in the countryside I called my husband and told him that I would be late because I had to walk home.

On my way, I passed by a small diner and the odor of baked beans was more than I could stand.

With miles to walk, I figured that I would walk off any ill effects by the time I reached home, so I stopped at the diner and before I knew it, I had consumed three large orders of baked beans.

All the way home, I made sure that I released all the gas.

Upon my arrival, my husband seemed excited to see me and exclaimed delightedly: “Darling I have a surprise for dinner tonight.”

He then blindfolded me and led me to my chair at the dinner table.

I took a seat and just as he was about to remove my blindfold, the telephone rang.

He made me promise not to touch the blindfold until he returned and went to answer the call.

The baked beans I had consumed were still affecting me and the pressure was becoming most unbearable, so while my husband was out of the room I seized the opportunity, shifted my weight to one leg and let one go.

It was not only loud, but it smelled like a fertilizer truck running over a skunk in front of a pulpwood mill.

I took my napkin from my lap and fanned the air around me vigorously.

Then, shifting to the other cheek, I ripped off three more. The stink was worse than cooked cabbage.

Keeping my ears carefully tuned to the conversation in the other room, I went on like this for another few minutes.

The pleasure was indescribable.
When eventually the telephone farewells signaled the end of my freedom, I quickly fanned the air a few more times with my napkin, placed it on my lap and folded my hands back on it feeling very relieved and pleased with myself.

My face must have been the picture of innocence when my husband returned, apologizing for taking so long.

He asked me if I had peeked through the blindfold, and I assured him I had not.

At this point, he removed the blindfold, and twelve dinner guests seated around the table chorused: “Happy Birthday!”

I fainted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funny

~ Akshay ~ 3 Comments

I am sure most of you have heard of the song “Aap jaisa koi” from movie Qurbani. A colleague of mine used to sing.. “Aap jaise koi meri zindagi mein aaye toh BAAP ban jaye” (If someone like you enters my life, you will become a father). The other day she was singing this and we all burst out laughing and I couldn’t resist posting this on the blog. Have a good weekend everyone :).