Plan is to take posession of the vehicle around the first week of August – to coincide with Dad’s birthday. And I need the time gap – after all, I’ll have to learn how to drive first

Guess this recent move of mine just about makes me the first jobless* person to buy a car in times of recession. And I tell you – it takes guts, people!! (And confidence in your ability to wheedle some cash out of the ‘Shek’ of Dubai in case things do go horribly wrong).

But I am (rather, shall soon be) proud owner of a Hyundai Accent – colour still being debated (black vs silver). Made the booking the day before yesterday and the bank loan should be cleared by the weekend. And I am rather proud of the achievement – to my grandchildren I can always boast I bought my own first car, and that too, at the age of 23!! Woohoo!!

Plan is to take posession of the vehicle around the first week of August – to coincide with Dad’s birthday. And I need the time gap – after all, I’ll have to learn how to drive first

* Well, the jobless situation isn’t as bleak as it sounds, really. I am supposed to join my new workplace on August 1, so technically speaking, I’m between-jobs. Makes me feel a whole lot better, put that way.

]]> http://confuseius.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/woohoo/feed/ 5 confuseius http://confuseius.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/about-college-fests-and-fairy-tales/ http://confuseius.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/about-college-fests-and-fairy-tales/#comments Sat, 14 Mar 2009 19:23:27 +0000 confuseius http://confuseius.wordpress.com/?p=82 ]]>

Two very interesting, and rather, unexpected finds this past week brought fond memories flooding back. I had been doing a sort-and-clear operation, both literally and figuratively – clearing my home and my mind of unwanted rubbish from the past, when I chanced across the afore-mentioned two things.

The first is a birthday gift from mommy, given to me some 10 years back, I think. As a gift, its absolutely the most unique I have ever received, but what really touched me about it was the thoughtfulness behind it – this is a personalized book dedicated only to me, and relates the story of Cinderella with a modern twist – she has me to help her win over Prince Charming! So, yay, I actually play myself in this story, helping Cinderella cope with her evil step-mother and step-sisters – and trust me, it can be such an awesome thrill knowing you are now immortal in fiction!

The second is an article I had written long, long back – when I was still in law college. I was then interning with a legal portal and decided to de-ride in full public view my college’s shoddy attempts at creating a Malhar-esque annual festival. While the article in itself is quite bitchy, it brings back some nice memories of law college, as well as my first job, thus qualifying it for a mention here. Excerpts from the article posted below:

“Let’s talk about college festivals. In fact, let’s talk about one particular college festival: ‘Just-ice’, the annual inter-collegiate festival hosted by Rizvi Law College (and I had nothing to do with the name of the fest; I lack the audacity to use such a terrible pun and pass it off as a law fest). But the name is only an indicator of worse things that are to come… like the horrendous event list that has been drawn up. It seems that my college has made the fest, in an attempt to make it live up to its name, an all-inclusive affair. So, not only do we have the requisite moot courts and debates, but we also have Rangoli, Mehndi, and Art competitions thrown in for good measure. I don’t know if it’s  just my imagination (I hope it is), but I think we also have a hair-styling event scheduled.

Now, you must not get me wrong. I love my college; it’s a good place to be. But sometimes, we seem to lose our hold on reality. One sheet of paper, among the many we have produced to promote the event, proclaims that the fest had invited an ‘overwhelming response’ from more than 40 colleges in Mumbai last year. But then, I guess a response from ‘Chiplunbhai Sahakarbhai College of Arts’ (now this is my imagination at work) might be a reason for my college to go ‘yay’.

My message is simple. A law college is a law college is a law college and there is no thing like a ‘cool (read, popular) law fest’. Law college is not a ‘happening’ place. So, an attempt to fashion a ‘cool’ festival is doomed right from its inception. It might have been a good idea to restrict the event only to the law colleges in Mumbai, but then, it’s safer working with 50 Chiplunkars, than say, a GLC or KC. It might have been a good idea to incorporate better events. Creativity isn’t restricted to Rangolis and Mehndis alone. It might have been a good idea to have let me in on the naming ceremony. I still have good suggestions. How about “N justice for all”?  It would make us look good in front of all the Rock-fans, and that’s what every college kid, who is worth his pair of stinking socks, is.

I still maintain I have nothing against my college, or against any of my friends who are happily organising the fest. But I fail to see what the fest is trying to prove. Why do something for the sheer heck of it? I might have thought that we need the publicity, but in this one case, no publicity is much, much better than any publicity. I don’t intend to attend the festival. And I am definitely not gonna be there to cheer my classmates as they try to do the ‘Macarena’ at our ’social’.“

The past few days have been spent in quiet contemplation about matters of the heart (though, some, like my brother, would claim that that’s my perpetual state of being). The trigger – two of my good friends – one, a colleague; and the other, my neighbour; recently got married, and no, not to each other.

Chidiya, better known as Robin Jacob Abraham to the outside world, tied the knot with Sweety Thomas, his girlfriend from his MBA years, on 25 Jan. I remember when he first informed us of the wedding – we were just dawdling in the lunchroom, as is custom, after an uneventful meal. After the initial burst of greetings – ‘Wow, Congratulations man!’ and vigorous back-thumping and handshaking, we sat down to digest the big news. This chidiya was all set to build his own ‘ghosla’. And now, Robin joins that elite minority of married folks at our office. The kind who, perhaps, will start getting a dabba from home.

Chandu, better known as Namita Varma to the outside world (incidentally, her nic for me is the other half of the name of the famous confectioners – ‘Halwai’), tied the knot today, with her beau from Canada – Harminder ‘Tony’ Jit. Theirs was a social-networking romance – Tony, brought up in Canada, bumped into one of Namita’s social profiles online, and the two became friends. One thing led to another, and as of this moment, they both stand happily married – man and wife. 

A cousin from Dad’s side of the family is also all set to get married in a week’s time. His is a case of arranged marriage – the girl is a distant family relation.

And despite the fact that most of the people mentioned here do not even know of the existence of this blog, I would like to use this space to wish them all, from the bottom of my heart, a profoundly happy married life. 

Anyway, with so many marriages occupying my social calendar, is it any wonder that my thoughts should turn to my own checkered love life?  I have been thinking about the past – and all those people who I’ve allowed to mean more to me than they probably expected, or deserved. 

And I’ve been thinking about the future – about where I think it’s all headed. And then I spy my mom’s gmail inbox – flooded with ‘new matches’ from tamilmatrimony. And I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Abhishek: and wat else is up? hows custard?

Me: custard??

Abhishek: isnt dat ur bfs name?

                     the makapav :p

Me: ??

Abhishek: dat guy naa

Me: kis zamaane ki baat kar raha hai

Abhishek: accha zamana badal gaya hai?

Me: u r so out-of-touch with my life

Abhishek: ab kaun hai, akbar elahabadi?

                      :p

                      well u dont bother to post abt it

                       and only way i know of ur life now is twitter or confuseius

                       we’re siblings 2.0

————————————————————————————————————————————————

And a poem dedicated to the newly-weds:

Khalil Gibran on Marriage

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, Master?
And he answered saying:

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
 

Last Saturday, a bunch of us from office went trekking at Mt. Kalsubhai, near Igatpuri. I was hoping my colleague, Robin, would put together a post on the trek at his blog, so I could simply link to it and add a few of my own comments. But no such luck. Robin has decided to do a review of ‘Singh is Kinng’ instead, leaving me to do all the hard work myself.

The plan initially was to go to Bhandardhara, about 35 kms away from Igatpuri (and 180 kms from Mumbai) – the waterfalls out there were the primary attraction. I thought that would be an ideal thing to do in the rains – go someplace nice, with lots of natural beauty, enjoy the waterfalls, return to the resort to piping hot meals, and laze around a bit – my idea of a dream vacation. But Deepak, our boss, soon convinced us that trekking at Kalsubhai was a better option. I was a little skeptical at first, which is my usual reaction to any activity that requires physical exertion on my part. But I had never attempted trekking before; this, and a misplaced sense of adventure, led me to fall in with the trekking plans.

We left office a bit early on Friday evening to shop around for some trek essentials – I purchased a pair of electric blue Reebok shoes, and I totally adore them now. We also bought a lot of dry snacks to carry on the way – chocolates, chips, fruit juice and biscuits. We didn’t realize it at the time, but we ended up buying way too much stuff – we lugged that stuff up a hill, and then down, untouched.

Ours was going to be a one-day trip; we were to leave in the morning and return by night, as opposed to the original plan of staying at Bhandardhara overnight. As there was to be no accommodation expense, we decided to splurge on travel instead – and hired a car (a Tavera) to take us there, and bring us back.

The driver assigned to us was (surprise! surprise!) extremely incompetent – he arrived about an hour late, and managed to get us lost even before we were out of city limits – instead of driving on to Kalyan from Thane and then hitting the Nashik Hwy, he started driving in the opposite direction – towards Mantralaya. Robin and Deepak are both from Delhi and understandably unfamiliar with the geography, and all I really know about Mumbai is limited to places on its Western Rly network – Virar to Churchgate, and a teeny, weeny bit about getting to Thane from Borivli. But we all knew that Kalyan and Mantralaya were diametrically opposite to each other on a map, and driving towards Mantralaya would not get us to Kalyan. So we asked around and eventually managed to get on to the Nashik Highway. We were already a couple of hours behind schedule, and encountered a massive traffic jam near Karjat. We lost more time there, and reached Bari village, at the base of Kalsubhai, only at 1.30pm – a good 3 and a half hours behind schedule.

The sight that met us at Bari evoked mixed reactions, I must add – about a 100 school kids were camped all around, having lunch, evidently just back from a trekking expedition themselves. Their clothes were wet and clung to their bodies – and their jeans were splattered with mud. I rejoiced inwardly – if a bunch of school children had managed to trek their way up and had returned with no obvious casualties, then the trek wasn’t going to be as challenging as I had started to fear it would be. The guys were obviously disappointed – there’s no fun scaling summits that even ordinary school children could. But we decided to go ahead and explore.

And I shall not dwell on what happened next in too much detail – I have spent considerable time already typing the above – but here are a few things that I learnt on the trip that I think would be of value to anyone contemplating such a trip themselves.

- Trekking during the monsoons is not a very good idea – especially if it happens to be your first trekking trip. The steep slopes, coupled with gooey mud and wet, slippery paths, make for treacherous climbing. I myself slipped once, and ended up with bruises on my wrists and my palm, and mud splattered all across my windcheater and pants.

- Avoid trekking altogether if you were never the active, out-doorsy sort, like yours truly. And it didn’t help matters that Deepak was a trekking superstar of sorts (I suspect he was a billy goat in some former life). So he would quickly amble up steep slopes and make it look effortless, while I was always at the rear, huffing and puffing, and suspecting I would die of a cardiac arrest any moment.

- Know your limits: I did a decent job of climbing up the first phase of the hill, and with a bit of panting and cursing and stopping every few minutes to give rest to my furiously-beating heart, did make it across the second phase as well. But I knew the third phase was much more steep – I had read on the internet that there was this gigantic, flat rock that had to be crossed at a 90 degree angle on metallic ladders built for the purpose. Sense prevailed. I dropped off, and asked the guys to carry on by themselves, while I admired the spectacular views of the valley from the second level. Which turned out to be a good thing, because the guys later reported that even they had trouble with the steep slopes.

So I parked myself on a nice grassy spot, and the whole valley was spread out before me. I could spot atleast a dozen waterfalls on nearby hills, and it was a beautiful thing – the gentle drizzle, the silence, and the verdant hillside.

I was also feeling a bit bad that I couldn’t make it to the summit of the hill – in my overly dramatic fashion, I assumed this to be a metaphor for my own life – an indicator that I would never make it to the top of anything because I lacked the drive and the energy. I thought to myself: while others make their swift climb to the top, you’d always be stuck here at the bottom, content with admiring the scenery.

And as I sat there ruminating over this, I suddenly recalled a TLC song that I used to listen to quite often as a kid; the song is called ‘Waterfalls’ and in that moment, it afforded me great consolation:

‘Don’t go chasing waterfalls
Please stick to the rivers and lakes that you’re used to
I know that you’re gonna have it your way or nothing at all
But I think you’re moving too fast’

I didn’t feel like a loser then, and I was congratulating my mind for coming up with such an apt song when I was most in need of encouragement. But , when I came home and googled up the lyrics of the song, I discovered, to my dismay, that the song was meant in a whole different context altogether. But I shall pretend I didn’t notice.