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The hakka warrior and the horses of death

FOREWORD

Dedicated to Baba Ramdev!

Not for the (un)successful phenomenon related to his political, moral, philosophical or social drama, but for his ability to go hungry for long durations.

THE STORY

He strode into his home … messy, dark and claustrophobic …

He was sweaty, tired, sore in the muscles and felt like Edward Norton’s character in fight club. Courtesy the kickboxing class.

He tried to sleep …but could not. His stomach was rumbling like horses trotting in an ancient blood bath in the colloseum. The trot promised to acoustically mutate into a full fledged battle-hungry gallop if he didnt do something about his raging hunger.

He decided to cancel the dinner-cancellation plan. The dread of the thought. The thought of the  horse-galloping sound of his  hungry stomach. He dragged his feet to the fridge and all there was an old packet of hakka noodles.

‘Blast! I forgot to re fill the food supplies in the house’ he cursed himself .

The hakka packet stood there , tempting him like Helen of Troy. He was no Paris.In fact he considered himself more on the lines of Hector. Oh pas de quoi …

So he drew the battle lines. It was like the battle of red cliff (the very Chinese movie playing that same moment on TV in English with a weird dubbing in an Indian accent!!)

Now the thing about cooking hakka noodles out of a hakka noodles packet is that it is not like cooking maggi noodles. It is not that easy. No wonder there is no 2 minute noodles  campaign with the hakka noodles packet.

The mutation in the stomach began! The horses were no mere horses anymore. Their rumbling in his stomach thundered at that moment. With a strength akin to causing lateral reverberatory pounding on his already injured ribs. Already injured courtesy the kick boxing class

Anyway he set about doing it the maggi way. It took long in the micro wave maybe too long, like the good guy and military general  Zu *what the fuck ever* in the then playing Red cliff movie waits for the South wind (makes his army’s arrows reach the enemy army’s ships) way too long. Way too long in the final *how the fuck* epic battle

Finally they cooked.They looked like this

‘Not bad’ he thought.’It would taste like paper or papyrus which ever tastes worst. Something is better than nothing. Better puny and lightly armed pikemen fight the galloping-horses than puny unarmed lungi men!’  He re thought his analogy and scoffed at it. He was going nuts. Courtesy the  galloping-horses.

And then it dawned. Like the South wind finally blew in the climax of  Red Cliff, like Gandalf came with the Roherriem in the climax of the The Two Towers(LOTR 2), like Rocky Balboa got up for one more round throughout the Rocky series, like Xiao Dre stood up for one more time in The Karate Kid, he saw this in the fridge in a corner, long forgotten …

Even the mother allusion on the sticker supported his allusion of the messiah arriving. So he mixed it up with the papyrus (hakka noodles) in the bowl.

Then, finally, it tasted ok! The horses had been sent in retreat. The battle had been won

xxxxxTHE ENDxxxxxxx

2010: That year gone by

The previous year (2010) started with a prophecy which to my loved ones (starting with mom), was the prophecy of all prophecies. Potentially the greatest harbinger of my doom`s eventual finality (lol! What words! I should cut down on the ‘epic fantasy` reading :p)

So no matter how hard I didn`t believe  such jyotish (astrology), it did do some damage, I didnt blog for the first 6 months of 2010. Not  that there is any connection, but my blogger’s block and this astrology shit just happened to be concomitant events.

Anyway … I guess I am still alive and 2010 was one of the best years of my life …a pioneering year for many different things …! So Mr.Astrologer , take your prophecies , round them up real nice and stick it  straight up your monkey a**

x-x-x

Anyway looking back at 2010, it was quite the amusing year.Below I tried to stick to a chronological structure though I did give more priority to the free flow of thought

  1. It truly started with a bang  with me getting myself shifted to the Business Intelligence Unit at my company. Lots of statistics, heavy duty number crunching and an infinitely clanish little team! The kind of combo I would dig into any day 🙂 !
  2. Then came an event that marked the synchronization of identity with the place I live in. My future generations shall know that event  as *me shifting to a flat in Bandra (West)*, the jazziest of Mumbai residential localities by far. With food, drinks, clubs,Joggers’ park, Gold’s gym, and discotheques a breath away, non-busy times promised never to be boring again.
  3. Not to mention travelling with pals on treks around mumbai to Lohagad, Rajmachi, Manikgad et al, incidentally all spiced up by the monsoon rains.
  4. Then came the  main course of 2010. the trip to EuropeEverything from the Louvre’ in Paris to the Wall in Berlin to the crazy coffee shops in Amsterdam to the European Union Parliament  in Strasbourg !For good measure, also throw in a large measure of Curry Wurst, Khus khus, Tartflombay and 1 litre beer mugs ! Even raced against an English guy (who by the way was not the stereotypically fat British dumpty)  in Paris for a 10 round race around the Eiffel Tower.   Bumped into Mythalez and Tejo at Amsterdam (all doped in the  jolly good sense of course!)
  5. Then, there was Goa (as usual) where besides the time spent at the beaches oggling at the girls, an appreciable time was spent  biking across 100 km of the North Goa coastline … shirtless !! 😛
  6. Not to mention visiting  Hyderabad a couple of times in 2010 . Even went to the extent of biking drunk on the roads of Hyderabad . Thankfully, I was driving at 10 kmph (haha!) , too slow for anyone to get suspicious or me falling in trouble.
  7. The amount of reading  done in 2010 was a rather amusing observation.  Tried a tad more than lightly to digress away from my stereotypical tendency to stick to the sci fi and epic fantasy genre’.  Did a fair diversification  by  becoming familiar with the linguistic, historical , biographical, autobiographical, social, non-fictional categories too. Of course, never completely lost my loyalty to the epic fantasy and sci-fi genre’ . By the way, the end of 2010 from the books’ perspective sees me searching for Stephen king’s Dark tower series, waiting for Part 2 in the Left Hand of God trilogy and  trying to fully comprehend Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink
  8. Of course I did continue ( like years of yore) , with my controversial theories (for instance, the Black berry bitch) So i did invite everything from ire to appreciation from different quarters. Haha ! There was one queer instance when one particular theory (about nosy relatives on FB) got me under scrutiny in family circles.  But well! how do you become a family legend/cult  without controversy, without rising against sardonic moronisms, against …. oh God! forget it  …..
  9. Running: I should be shot if I dont talk of this. Yes! I did find my intermittently lost passion for running in 2010 …after two years (one more time!! Before I become old and crippled). Out with it came some new self-made techniques and strategies for running races. I guess I am getting into shape and preparing hard for various running events around India. Hope things work out well.

….. Well thats it for now!  2010 was not bad at all . I feel light now that I have put down the important stuff for posterity. There were obviously some bad-ass tales and some tragic ones in 2010 too, like it is for every one! But that set will find its place in the blog’s private part.

Yours truly,

Ghost Runner

Of Baba Hyderabadi and unrelated stuff

Baba Hyderabadi = common nick name of a gangster(read fraud gangster,in my context) from hyderabad

[made famous by that stupid sanjay dutt-suneil shetty short story in Dus Kahaaniyaan)

Anyway, back to ze point(s)

The Ill-omen Bangalored pit stop

Been at Hyderabad for nearly 3 weeks now … one of the most eventful stays in ages

Went to Bangalore for only three days in between.But it was like some sort of ill omen …

The weather became dull .Arbit software enginers were killed.Newspapers in bengalooru reported the highest frquency of weekend traffic accidents. 😦 Fursat ke dinon main Ajeeb ittefaq ! (dont mind my Urdu 😛 ..picking it up just recently)

The IIITian connection

Came back to visit the place where I left my soul.

Old pals and I spent time (hyderabadi hoolign style) sitting like country bumpkins at the coffee shop and staring at whoever passed by.

Sigh!Reminds me of the good ol’ days of yore !!

Legend of the Drunken Master

Well guess its time to confess …

The whole guy without a soul thingie that I presented myself to be lead to this.Inspired from the Jackie Chan movie called Drunken Master, folks at IIM-C started calling me that!

There was an instance (one fo the b-school style parties) where I jumped from a raised paltform and kicked one of the girls in a drunken stupor.Thank God I was let go with a warning!

Anyway this time I quit for sure ! Never liked the taste and dont fancy the drunken master tag anymore.

the book …

The final hand-written draft is underway! Will finish it perhaps within a couple of years.By the way the tentative title is still Unto the last !!

… and finally, Singa

Around 63 hours to go.This is tentaively my last pre-internship post from home,from Hyderabad,from India …

Pray I get the Pappu !

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Verse of the day

All these I superficially do

Of which I am not too keen

But alas! It is placidly seen

Its still you,still me

And an eternity in between !!

An excerpt

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ps: matze mero yatse !

ps1 : Ghar ka khaana rocks!

ps2: Hyderabad rocks

ps3 :Better girls in leather than pink frocks

ps4 : In singa … Put fight ! Put crack ! Internship andozzzz !

ps5 : Me off to lunch

ps6: next report from out-of-station 😉

EXABLOG: prelude to the half-manager post

As per the exablog tradition, this is the definition of exablog

the thinking-part

Anyway tomorrow is one last exam of the third term namely Personal Economics in HRM,a subject that involves thinking on toes in an exam.Vo vo ..my hands itch … here’s one of those rhymes again …
Hmm so sir !!You want a thinkie ??

But most would give a paper u wud call stinky

Why cant it be a nice lil’ muggu paper

Where one gets marks and not become a cartoon caper !

But nonetheless, a majority would emphasize on filling rather than thinking.Oh well! Keeps them happy I guess, at least until the results are out.Err ..ahem! That set includes me of course 😛

Home-coming of the Lilli

Anyway Lilli aka DVL in Qual Comm .So Lilli coming back to hyderabad !

204670139_e959486904.jpg


My hyd-coming

16th March.Good that I get to do a bit of what fellow-gults would call kirkiri 😉 !

What am I talking about ? Nothing re mamu … planned lots of misadventures, in Hyderabad and beyond 😉

More on this later …

The week gone by …

Very well !! I landed in Hyd. , turned to my Joka frnd and said , “Isn’t the weather awesome? ”  So thanks to the infinitely sweat-inducing weather of Kolkata , the Hyderabad weather appeared like jannat 

Anyway it was good to be back home. You have aunties,uncles,other relatives and even their dogs treating you like some kind of dude 😛 (couldn’t think of a simpler term 😛 ) 

Went to the Gachibowli campus,pals’ rooms et al. It was fun cathcing up 😉

Remaining holidays spent in hanging out with the oh-so-amusing Venni-Sunni  combination!

AJ  is still in hyper-depression mode courtsey his break-up with his ex-gf ,one and a half year ago.Shucks! Nothing as gullible as a egoistical fellow in love 😐 (This single published line will trigger all hell to break loose … my farewell gift to hyderabad ..oh boy! I can get prettty dark-sided at times )

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ps : 230000 candidates appearing for CAT 2007 , 40000 more than last time .

ps1 : Wonder why  the Sensex is acting like its on steroids ???

ps2:  In the future , farmers might create their own SEZs :O

ps3 : Gosh! Why am I getting this stuff in my PSes !

ps4 :  The place where I left my soul  still has my soul ! 

ps4.5 : This is PS no. 4.5 !!

ps5 : I will be back inthe IIM-C  campus by tomorrow’s afternoon , back to the grinding process !

ps6 : The Last PS from Hyderabad

The never ending quest

Mr.Halley’s infused a desperation in me by challenging me to find TexasChain Saw Massacre.

As if thats not enough,stupid me in all grandeur actually took an oath that I would not step on IIITian soil without a CD of that dumbass of a movie ! And I just fail to find a stupid ol’ movie 😦

Analogy :

Halley = King Arthur (below is a pic)

 (original pic )
Texas chain saw massacre CD = Holy Grail

Abbulu =Knight of the round table 😉

——————————————————————————————ps:Further info about the Arthurian legends

ps1:What does THIS mean ???

Home and stuff

Finally the  abbulu-meister is back homeAfter three weeks of slogging , blogging,rusting et al in IIIT  , I came home yesterday.Its a different feeling.Folks at home treating  me a like a grown up .

Granma , Granpa and chinna :

Hmm… reminds me of that border dialogue , “Bacchha khilone se khelte khelte bada ban gaya”Went to  thata and Ammamma  next.Hehe ..they still treat me like the chinna character 😛 (for those of late ,   thats my nick meaning “small” in telugu.)Well! Guess I am happy that way with them.Mom and dad ..fine! But grandparents treating me like some bade aadmi  ?? Scarrrrry to contemplate !

Dad and abbulu combo  :

Its been a while since dad and  me went on one of those father-son outings.So he’s decided to check out some new mall in  the city (dont know anything , have been in a self imposed exile for some days).Dad calls it the “all-boys” shopping spree!! Does such a concept exist ?  Hmm.. or most probably we will stuff ourselves with all sorts of junk food ..yeah ..probably by shopping , dad meant eating spree ..yumm..that would be cool !!! Cant wait for the evening 😀

Maaaa :

Okie … nothing much but I must  have gained  more than a couple of kilogrammes within the last 10 hours.Guess that says it all 😉

 The out of place parts :
Hyderabad is supposedly the new retail capital of India. Check this out

India test fired a new missile.They claim that its a defence technology break-through  ! But sounds to me like any other missile test.Whatever …

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ps : Got only one midsem next week 😀

ps1 : Must start preparing for XAT

ps2 : Dont understand why in the name of  #%@^% did i become so lazy after the Sports meet !!

At home , gathering rust ;yet nothing beats home

It good to be at home eating “ghar ka khaana” (though I am actually suffering from a bout of anorexia right now)

But It just occured to this mind of mine that as long as I stay at coll. I crave to go back home.After a few days at home and spending quality time with my folks , I crave to go back to coll. Notice the paradox ?? Guess its a mind’s incessant longing for variance.

Ammamma makes AWEsome pooris.They are the inspiration behind me staying at home.The other dishes granma makes are very good too.But the pooris are cut above the rest.Wouldn’t be an understatement if I say that they transport my soul to Jannat/Svarg/Valhalla 😀

Watched spider man 2 the other day(or rather night) in HBO for the umpteenth time.Must say that I really like the train scene and also the movie’s climax 🙂

Catching up and Hanging out with old school pals is fun. Its fun recollecting the good old days of innocence .. (was I innocent back then ?!?!?!?!?! Only HE remembers) But certainly , the guys n gals are mighty pleased that I became a lesser angry man.Guess destiny had it that way all along ,huh ?

Haven’t been to the gym like say , hmm ..OMG!!8 days ! But the ray of hope lies in the  relevation that I can survive even without the gym. Besides,I am hardly running.Guess this anorexic phase is keeping my belly  from getting into a convex shape.

YM-fying all close pals almost everyday 😀 Must say chalked out several plans of contriving some electrifying (love this word) fun (**** me snickering like the Crpyt Master of old ****) once coll. reopens. 😀

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ps : Bunked my first CAT class today in 2 weeks,to avoid burn-out.But its only an exercise-class,so guess it isn’t that big a gambit.

ps1 : Looking forward to coming back to IIIT 🙂

The thing about nicks

I went home for the weekend and Granma said "How are you ,chantoda ? Nearly a fortnight since you came home"

"Ammamma! I am 19.Not chantodu anymore " (chantoda = little boy) 😉

Grandpa said "You are always chantodu to us." I dont exactly see a relevance but got inspired to write this post.

Once during the first year I gave my fellow-in-wing,arms,distress,etc., the nick "Sandy" .He countered (he de facto rocks at CS ) by calling me "Bobs".Thats how my first nick was born.

The "sandy" thing vanished like described in Metallica's "I diasappear" but the "Bobs" thing caught on with others. Alternate versions like "Bobsy","Bay-ba" too came up 🙂

One more nick that cropped up in the first year was Enthu.P or Enthu Pea.Original idea is credited to Anand Vasudev.

Enthu

A more mellow,senti side comes up when I think about the nicks at home. Ammamma n Thata (Granma 'n' Granpa) call me "Chantoda" as mentioned above.

Mom calls me "Kaana" inspired from the busy bee tag Lord Krishna had when he was a little fellow.

But my favourite is dad's "Abbuluga !" 😉 (Abbulugaadu = funny amusing fellow in Telugu slang (I am not sure !!))

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ps : Actually felt good listening to Mr.Stanley's philosophy(of all courses!!! ) lecture.

p1 :Raghu's birthday had the bum-bashing session missing 😦

ps2 : I always used to say when I was a chantodu "I want to be He-Man when I grow up."But surely not someone like this

ps3:IIIT stationary saaaaaaaks

ps4: One big uncoveted show-down with Mr.BLN and Mr.Bala coming up.Will soon dedicate a post for this.For now, it will be "The battle of the willow"