Mad World

2007-12-18T18:55:00.000-08:00

Now this picture ain't so clear. But I've encircled the object of interest. This is a new house being built in Moga, a town some 75 kms from Ludhiana. Generally we hand lemons and green chillies at our door steps to ward off any ominous spirits or people. These people went a couple of thousand steps ahead and hung ... yes , a baby doll. That explains the lower quality because of zoom. I didn't wanna get near that friggin house any more than necassary.

2007-12-18T18:40:00.000-08:00

Here's another case of bad - mass - naming.
As the name of the agency suggests, there are 'brothers' involved in the venture.
So first off, Kuldeep is called 'Deepa' which is a completely feminine name, one that even gay-s would like to stay off.
Next up is 'babbu'. Although it closely resembles a well-meaning word synonymous for 'an elderly person' , it spelling leads to a pronunciation which resembles more of what a toddler sitting at the backseat would utter while you wonder just how many imaginary friends he's got in the back seat and weather that is leagal.
The third 'brother' is 'kala'. This one is just plain offensive. It means 'black-y'. It's like naming a brother who's got retarded growth a 'retard'. Retards.
The last brother is a typical punjabi nickname. 'Lucky'. I wonder if he wasn't then wud he be stuck amongst a better bunch of brothers ?

Roadtrippin' !!! ... to Ludhiana

2007-12-09T07:44:00.000-08:00

Well not much here. It was just an awesome drive. 330 kms of so-awesome-you-can-fly-on-it road. We've all played those racing games when we were kids. (If you haven't then you probably had a traumatic childhood and , well, shit happens. And yes I am still a kid.) So I took a couple of dashboard-cam pics.

....Speedy... :)

Soon after you exit Delhi, starting from Sonepat to about 50 kms, there's nothing but fog.

zero visibility.

It kinda reminds one of Silent Hill

This is a real picture I took. It's not a screenshot from Silent Hill. Guess it just came out that way.

Oh ! and to conclude, here's my ride. It ain't a Lamborghini Gallardo, but hey ! I'm not talkin' about your shirt am I ? Besides, I love it.

2007-12-09T05:51:00.000-08:00

Heights of merchandising.
Every company wants to be in the most visible position in the limited space. Look at the poor guy inside the shop. He can probably barely breathe in there.

2007-12-09T05:19:00.001-08:00

Our man here in Jaipur mutilated the meter in order to emphasis the ridiculous point that 'they don't run on meters'.

Fuckers.

2007-12-09T05:13:00.000-08:00

Got the common cold ? Have 3 spoons of cow urine to cure.
Acme problem ? Rub cow urine on ur face 5 times a day.
One piss cure all !

2007-12-08T22:51:00.000-08:00

My pick from the menu .... Booty ! Ofcourse what gets me is the presence of idly in all that carnage.

Man ................. is an animal, after all

2007-12-08T22:38:00.001-08:00

Here's what I saw while working the markets in Bangalore. The second one is more representative. More of similar kind are lying close by.

2007-12-01T10:19:00.000-08:00

Location : Jaipur, outside Country Inn
Saw this bad boy outside of a Subway in Jaipur. The name on the tank is 'Intruder'. Will have to google it. Might put it on the 'to-do' list.

2007-11-29T08:09:00.001-08:00

Went by to the nearest CCD to have some coffee and work on my ppt. And here's what I got.
It does bring a smile to one's face.

Queer !

2007-11-29T08:06:00.001-08:00

One's a wall the other's a walkway

Guess which one ?

Ye India ka Cricket hai ... Beedu

2007-11-29T07:54:00.000-08:00

It's a fact that this country's mad about cricket. It's one thing reading it on ur screen.
It's a completely different thing feelin it on a 47 degree afternoon, where you have set up a stall, watching eager kids and hags pretend to be the tendulkar's and the dhoni's of the world.
Sigh, I just wanted to go home.

It used to be an international ground at one time , but for some reason they cut the funding or whatever. Now it hosts shady local matches. Anyhow, it was my first time on the field of a stadium.

That's 'em buggers. Noone had a sun stroke. Sigh ...

I got my own pitch report ;)

Witnessing history in the making

2007-11-29T07:26:00.001-08:00

Location : Jodhpur
A great sign of modernization of any city nowadays, more than the mindset of the people, has become the advent of malls. So yes, I was there when Jodhpur was getting modernized. Presenting the first ever mall in Jodhpur. I don't know it's name :)
And that folks, is how the inside of an escalator looks like.
quite a drab acutally.
Another case of bad-naming.
Direct translation : "Ghost TVS". I wonder what were they thinking ...

2007-11-29T07:23:00.000-08:00

Old is Gold

Location : Bioscope, Jodhpur
This is the best form of the Pepsi logo I ever saw. It's a pity it's mostly on fountains.

2007-11-29T07:10:00.000-08:00

Palooka Floozie

Location : Jodhpur
A very weird picture this. The camera was working fine. The buildings looked fine. The weather was great. I had just had a nice lunch. Yet for some reason, this pic seems a bit flow-y. Like the bottom part is slipping to the left !

2007-11-29T07:06:00.000-08:00

Location : Jodhpur

Direct translation of this would mean "Piss House".
For some reason they couldn't use the actual terminology in hindi, 'shauchalaya'.
I took a picture of the horrors inside the "piss house" also. But I can't put it up here as people with a weak heart might also happen to see it.

2007-11-29T06:56:00.000-08:00

Welcome to ze Barrrrr ... Yes monsieur
This is a vsery nice Barrr that happensszz to be on ze way from Zaipoorrr to Zodhpooorrrr.
Ze menu is not much, but it's enough in ze middle of wilderrrrrrrnesszzzz.

Finally ... grazing hands with Mr. Reaper under water in the ganga !

2007-11-29T05:27:00.000-08:00

Our wait was finally over.

We took the long bus ride to the starting point , i don't remember it's name. But i was sitting next to chaurasia, and he was telling me how shit scared he was. We were treading the hills and through the window he could see the huge drop (i don't know, must b some 7-800 ft.) and below that he could see the raging river. He told me how he was scared of heights, and water.

I laughed at him. I'm not afraid of either. I'm not afraid of a lot of things. But that's mostly because I disregard their importance or seriousness. What then works for me mostly is that I'm lucky. But then sometimes it doesn't.

Anyhow, we were strapped into our life jackets and helmets. It felt damn cool. It was my first rafting experience.

I don't know what I'm doin in that picture !

I was tryin a very visionary kinda pose here. But Raman, in his eternal restlessness clicked it at the 'unfortunate' moment. So here I am looking like a dumb freak. But what the hell, that's the only one I have just before I drowned .... so here it is.

The Outbound @ Rishikesh , and drowning @ Ganga ... contd.

2007-11-29T05:10:00.000-08:00

So the first day ambled by ... without much action

All we could do was dream about rafting

The next day started off with an eventful trek.
We left our palace of luxury in the wilderness, Camp Panther Snowleopard

and proceeded to get lost in the jungle. While I'm not sure about how much of our leadership abilities were reflected or developed during the trek, I sure realized high far behind I am from being 'in shape'.
We did get to see some nice flora on the way ... feast your eyes .

and also very small amount of fauna ...

This is by far my favorite pic of the whole stack. Something about predators ... beautiful.
Overall we had some great laughs.

But it was a damn hot up there. I could've squeezed our river amazon from my boxers at the end of it !
Yes that's me, trying to control the leakage.
Finally we made it through. A long day. A long walk ... too long.

The Outbound @ Rishikesh , and drowning @ Ganga

2007-11-29T04:49:00.000-08:00

Right.

So our company took the 'fresh batch of leaders' to an outbound. To assist in our transition from Campus to Corporate . To say the least, it was one of the most exhilarating experiences I've ever had (we'll get to that in a bit).

Just to give you an introduction, this is where we spent our time learning !

Well let's see , there was the river, the beach, basketball ring, volleyball court .. at the resort and at the beach, rock climbing, rappling, rafting ... phew ! What as not to like !

However, our hopes and dreams were soon made mince meat of in the morning. That's when we realized that there was actually a learning objective to the whole affair , and that we'd be spending most of our time hatching eggs under our asses in a tent and introspecting upon our leadersh.... (yawn, i'm not even gonna finish the word, forget the sentence !)

So we spent our time at the beach, solving the spider's web (crappy activity) ad getting sand in our undies.

The man in the left is Mr. Ajit Mulla. Jokes apart, he was a hell of a facilitator ... and also showed us some hell once in a while. No wonder he is a Stephanian !

We drank some coffee ...

Played ...

and posed !

A curious picture actually, the last one. I don't remember having this one clicked. Yet I'm in it. And there are none of the women in the picture. I wonder why. And if we're all posing, then why the hell are we not looking in the direction of the camera !!!!

Anyhow, what's most surprising is that Patro (the guy in the front with the ball) seems to be wearing stretch jeans !

P.S. - Ze credit for these pictures goes to Raman and his Canon EOS 350D