Friday, March 27, 2009

Tweeting Torture...

Moving into a new house is always such a lot of hardwork and toil. After all the movers and packers lifting your heavy refrigerator and luggage do need to be told where to put all the stuff. And all that directing is really tiring!

Anyway, after painstakingly putting together your stuff and postponing all planned improvements on the house the only thing you want is a long night's deep relaxing sleep. And of course with the next day being a Saturday you tend to go to bed late (it's back to the school days when you'd be sent off to sleep by 10 on school days and were allowed to stay awake over the weekend. Another weird digression - I used to polish my shoes and pack my school bag by 7:30 pm everyday in primary school. And I remember getting extremely stressed out once when it was beyond 7:30 and i hadn't polished my shoes yet. Weird things we take too seriously as kids, huh? :) ). Accordingly I went to bed, read a bit, switched off the light, gazed at the stars, moon, saturn, rocketships glowing overhead (what? you haven't read the previous post? Go, go now- read it, i'll wait for you to come back)and then gently lulled into a peaceful, gentle doze that pretty soon transmogrified (Calvin & Hobbes) into a deep blissful I-didn't-put-the-alarm-cos-I-can-get-up-anytime-tomorrow sleep. I can imagine angels coming down from the heavens, staring at my beatific smile and proclaiming - here sleeps a man at peace with the world, atleast for 2 nights a week, that is.

A beautiful vision isn't it...


Alas, the world conspires to shake up any beautiful peaceful visions.

My house is on the first floor surreounded with groves of trees teeming with arboreal colonies of freakin' rat-a-tat birds who scream like there's no tomorrow at exactly 5:59 am in the BLOODY morning!

And there's this particularly sadistic bird that goes 'KEKEKEKEKEKE' and stops...and just as you're lulled into a false sense of hope that it flew away, its vocal chords collapsed or a a meteorite hit it (in order of increasing hope)- 'KEKEKEKEKEKE deux'


I swear if I get my hands on that bird I'll pluck it a feather at a time, and after plucking each feather I'd put some salt on the still-sore area...then wait a bit for the sting to go down...then proceed to pluck the next feather. Ok, this is beginnning to sound extremely sadistic.

But in my defense - it started it!!!

Monday, March 16, 2009

Moved...

It's been a while, huh?

Well I've been kinda busy for a while. Its that amongst other things I've shifted to a new house this week and whoever says that that is easy has got to be kidding. I finally got the internet working today after chasing the airtel connection guy all around the building (figuratively speaking) all of the weekend.

Actually it was the other way around. He was supposed to come yesterday and I kept calling him every hour or so. In the most sincere voice I have EVER heard he told me repeatedly that he'd be there in half an hour as he just got stuck somewhere. And as soon as he finished this work he'd leap and bound and almost materialize in my new house to do the honours. Though I've become reasonably immune to such statements I swear I heard the gentle ring of truth and honesty in that man's voice.

No wait, that was just his phone ringing after he stopped picking my calls after 2 in the afternoon. So seething and foaming at the mouth I had no option but to abandon hope of getting online on Sunday.

I called him this afternoon and he said "he forgot"! Yeah, sure mate and if you even imagine you're getting a tip from me - well you're getting the oscar for optimism then!

About the new house, its quite nice. Its in a place called National Games Village. Its a large number of buildings within boundaries which were made during
a. either the Asian Games
b. National games (this does seem likely, seeing that it doesn't take a genius to correlate the name of the complex to the name of the games, but still I seem to remember it was the Asian Games. I shall check and get back to you. [er who am I kidding, if you're really curious to know you better not wait for me to post it here])

Anyway, it has a very collegiate feel to it and the separate buildings could almost be like hostels in DCE. In the evenings there is the entire college landscape with people generally hanging out on the main road, bunches of guys standing around on bikes checking out girls, people crowding around the ice cream shop (a la DCE), lots of noise and activity. There's also a sports complex which was one of the reasons of taking up a place here. It has a pool, tennis courts, a gym, badminton courts etc etc. Hopefully we'll use most of these facilities.

Plus I have friends in 1-2 buildings here so its almost like in college when we'd get bored in the room and then just hop skip to another hostel to chat up with people. Of course, now that everyone is working, the visit frequency cannot replicate the hours and hours of lazy GC (er..banter)that was a staple of hostel life (sigh).

The apartment itself is quite nice and roomy and of course PS is my flatmate again! The apartment is towards a quieter corner of the complex and is quite quiet. This is what I really like - the house should give an option of just spending some quiet time, and to go out and mingle with the hulla balloo if you want to.

One awesome thing is that the room i've taken used to be the kids room for the family staying here earlier. So apart from the Noddy, Winnie the Pooh and MIckey Mouse stickers on the almirah, the ceiling is also painted with stars and comets and moon and saturn and rocket ships which glow gently in the night!!

Very cool. I tried taking a picture but the camera flash kicks in and the stars and comets and moon and saturn and rocket ships didn't show up clearly. Suffice to say that when I turn off the light at night, the glowing stars on the ceiling above do bring a smile to my face.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Weekend Diaries...

Well it's been a long time since I regaled you with tales of my awesome weekends. So going back to tradition I shall be doing so about this weekend. And though the weekend is far from over, as I write this on Sunday afternoon, I'm not sure if I want any more excitement for this weekend. But, then again, most of the best times one has are impromptu!

Anyway, Friday evening after work seemed to be an absolute disaster. 7:30 pm saw me finishing up dinner and preparing myself for an early night. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, 7 freakin' 30!

Then the phone rang.

I waded into a stream of expletives as PS who's come back to Bangalore a couple of weeks back and is currently staying at his company guest house politely told me what he thought of my 'host' behaviour. "It's a Friday and not even a call from you SB? Is this how you treat guests into your city. I bet the welcome would've been diammetrically opposite if it was a pretty girl who had come into town! You $@%@#^@#$ and $@%^$%!#."
Having thus opened my sleep dreary eyes, PS proceeded to awaken the normal non-730-sleeping-swapnil in me. And then things started moving!

We decided to meet up at Purple Haze ( http://www.purplehaze.co.in/ ). A couple of text messages later two more people NK and PG also hopped on the bandwagon. Poor chaps had to come all the way across the city as they were working, but their pithy li'l eyes lit up (I'm assuming) when they read my sharp, crisp sms - "puple haze?". Ah, the joy of effective communication is indeed in connecting with the listeners inner wants. Beer, in this case!

Another friend, H, joined us after a tough day at work and PS also brought a colleague with him. After this it was great fun. The music was good, the conversation flowed smoothly, and after the customary 11:15 shut down of all pubs in Bangalore we took a walk around the place to get something to eat. The ever life saving Imperial hotel came to our rescue as we closed the day after a scrumptious meal there. Came back home just after midnight, read a bit and then slept off. A perfect Friday evening.

Saturday morning saw Sid and me putting on our sporty gear to get a couple of sets of tennis. Unfortunately since I left my last company (Wipro, for those who know me only through the online world. And also, I have been reprimanded that I put nothing about my job change etc. on my blog. All I'd like to say is that I am sticking to my policy of not writing anything about work on this blog. I really don't want this blog to become a cribbing/venting out place for a week full of work. Suffice to say I moved jobs recently but am still based out of Bangalore)I get to use the courts there only as an accompanied guest. Which is no problem as one or the other guys can raise me a pass, the issue is that I'm not allowed to enter the campus before 8:30am. And with the weather playing truant with searing heat through the day, an 8:30 start means that we end up getting inordinately tanned (baked?). But what to do? Tennis has to be played!

We had a pretty good game and I managed to fight my way out from the verge of defeat. Hell, why am I being modest on my own blog? I was 1-5 down and managed to pull it up to a tie break which I eventually won. Very very awesome game.

But things were only getting better and better. After one of those really awesome naps that happen once in a while only - the ones from which you wake up completely refreshed and have no clue how many calls you've missed- it was time for another party!

Now almost every weekend I hangout at one of two houses of my ex-colleagues and have a good time. This time we decided that if we're going to see the same familiar faces again and again, the least we can do is to change the surrounding! So the six of us met at La Casa, a quaint little continental restaurant, near Sarjapur. I've written about this restaurant earlier as well http://swappinglives.blogspot.com/2008/07/chefs-er-rather-rambling-curry.html.

The food was good and the conversation was hilarious but 11:30 saw us being turned out of the place again. Seriously, this 11 pm deadline is disgusting. I mean, things just start getting warmed up by 11 and the waiters surround your table entreating you to get the hell out!

So there we were, 6 people stuffing themselves in my car, singing along to blaring Dev D songs (yes, the CD is still there in my car's music system), and zeroing into yet another branch of the eternal life saver Imperial Hotel. We picked up some food from there and landed at, where else, one of the two regular haunts we have. But then some good music was played and we sat up till around two.

And Sunday has gone nice and relaxed as it should go till now. And as I'm about to curl up for yet another afternoon nap, I can only say that you never know - the evening may suddenly throw up some other possibility that warrants a whole post to itself!

C'est la vie!