Sin Free 6.0 - 23.06.2013

Sin Free 5.0 - 23.03.2012

My yearly tour to Tirupati to zero out all my sins and start afresh. I became sin free yet again on 23rd March, 2012.

The Dream - 16.03.2012

Its finally happened - after 22 long years of seeing a phenomenon named Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. He now goes a hits a 100th hundred - unthinkable, unimaginable, unrealistic, surreal - for others. Just a normal day of cricket for the greatest batsman the world has ever seen and probably will ever see.

16th of March, 2012 - Friday - will be remembered for ever - yet another day when people switched on their TVs and switched off their lives.

East Coast of India - Vishakhapatnam Trip

Of the nearly 3 decades of my living experience, I had never seen the East Coast of India. Well, it finally happened - seeing the east coast was just a side dish, the main one (and a surprising one too) was Babu naga (house husband of 523/116) getting married (to a girl !!). Surprising ... because if babu naga can get married, then there is still hope for bachelors like me. Also it re-confirms the fact that girls really are dumb!!

The Plan – Reach Vizak on 14^th noon – EAT - meet Naga at wedding venue – EAT – say tadas to Naga – EAT - roam Vizak – EAT - get back for his reception at 19:00 hours – EAT – say tadas again – EAT - get back for the actual wedding at a sub-human time of 4:00 am - EAT. Needless to say, we did not do any of that except the EAT part.

So let me warn you all, if someone is going to read this piece of text with the hope of knowing what happened at the wedding, please close the webpage. That’s because, none of us attended the wedding. The ‘us’ is – Gogo, kallu mama, GD and moi. In monetary terms, we spent a total of 35k to attend the wedding but eventually we did not. I guess it pales in comparison to the 40L we spent jointly in doing our MBA!!!!! But in case you are interested in the usual activities of “The Bakar Gang”, you are in the right place.

Finally we got going on the 14^th morning – I and GD taking the 10am Jet flight to Vizak. GD was punctual and applied his Supply Chain theory of JIT to reach the airport while the Jet staff was furiously calling out as the counter was closing. We told the lady at the check-in counter to give us separate seats. We explained to her that it will maximize our chance ki koi item aake baaju mei baithe. If looks could kill, Mumbai airport would have had 2 dead bodies – I and GD, the lady at the counter gave us the dirtiest of the dirty looks after she heard that!! Shameless as he is – GD laughed on her face and we walked off.

On entering the jet flight, I saw Aamir Khan welcoming us into the flight. Don’t scratch your head too much – I was referring to Aamir’s look in Dil Chahta Hai where he maintains a little beard just below his lower lip. There was an air hostess who was sporting that look! GD later clarified that the air hostess had a mole below her lower lip and not an actual beard. Now who was I to challenge GD for his ‘paarkhi nazar’ on ladies! After an uneventful flight for us (not for our neighbors) we disembarked into the unwelcoming heat of Vishakhapatnam to search for Mr. Ajay Kumar – our pick up man.

Now as you all know, if the name is Ajay there sure has to be a problem. Mr. Ajay Kumar did not have a name plate but he gave us a unique; and I mean absolutely unique way to recognize him. We were to look out for a person with white shirt and black pant – how uncommon and a truly rare combination! Resigning to the fact that his name was Ajay, I did not argue much. Once outside the airport, I started screaming “white shirt and black pant” … got some people amused and got GD cussing at me, but we finally found our Ajay. Packed off in an SUV, we reached the guest house.

We met Gogo at the hotel who was busy seeing “Maine Pyaar Kiya” in Telugu. After exchanging some un-pleasantries, we diverted our attention to the service person Mr. Reddy at the hotel who did not know Hindi or English but only Telugu. He wasn’t sure which room is booked for us, so Gogo started explaining him in mix of Hindi, English, Telugu lavishly mixed with cuss words and other vulgarities. The family nature of the forum prohibits me from going into the explicit details but it’s enough to say, that me and GD were rolling on the floor hearing that exchange.

Finally we decided to head out to Naga’s marriage venue not because we were eager to meet him but just because we were hungry and wanted some food. Naga who was sitting in mandap doing some rituals was very happy to see the three of us, but his happiness was short lived as we asked for food before even saying a hello to either him or his parents. The highlight of the day was when I asked him ki s**** piyega kya … the expression was of disbelief and exasperation as to how could someone ask that sitting in a mandap in front of Pundit, parents and other family members. Quickly we made an exit from the mandap towards food and then back to the hotel. Before heading back to the room, we had another hilarious round of interaction with Mr. Reddy.

After a quick nap, we went to visit the Rama Krishna beach where we had some bhel, mirchi bhajji and kacchi kairi and followed it up with chocolate dessert and coffee. Kallu mama was supposed to land at 19:15 hours so it was decided to kill some more time and wait for him. We decided to pay a visit to Naturals spa after a round of negotiation with the auto rickshaw driver.

Kallu landed at 19:15 and he was asked to come directly to the spa and pick us from there and then go for Naga’s reception. As you might have already guessed, it did not happen. Well for a change, Kallu listened to us and came over to the spa only to find Gogo and GD busy getting a body massage while I was getting a haircut done. After waiting for another 1 hour, kallu’s patience gave way and he started screaming at us – as to how irresponsible we could be getting massages and haircuts whereas Naga’s reception was going on. All of kallu’s histrionics were ignored as we have been doing for the past 4 years.

By the time we left, it was 21:00 hours and we had already received several calls from babu naga. We promised him that we will come to the venue in 10 minutes. Kallu took that too seriously and asked the driver to take us to the venue directly. The driver was in a state of shock hearing this – even the driver could not think of people going to a wedding reception in t-shirts and shorts. Luckily sense prevailed and we dropped the idea of going in shorts to the reception. I could only imagine the looks on the faces of Naga’s in-laws had we entered in t-shirt, shorts and chappals.

So we decided to …. Ehhh welll … go outside and have dinner first instead of going back to hotel, changing into some decent attire and going to the reception. So the four of us entered some Andhra style hotel. On entering, Kallu mama asked for a finger bowl. Now either he has a fetish for ‘fingering’ or it’s the Andhra culture to ask for finger bowl first. We wouldn’t have been surprised had the waiter also given us the bill before ordering for food. In total, Kallu mama asked for three finger bowls before/ after meals. Probably he was trying to match the number of times he asked for rice. We had a highly enlightening session on cows and how through injections they give extra milk. Again due to the family nature, I cannot go into specifics but I can promise that we created quite a scene in the restaurant. Finally, the discussion ended with Kallu being the proud owner of 2 cows that gave extra milk.

10:30pm on the clock and finally we decided to go to Naga’s reception. On the way, someone suggested that due to over-eating it is better to skip Naga’s reception and go to the hotel and sleep. Well, being honest and I apologize to Naga in advance, this thought got serious consideration. Only the prospect of more food at the reception, made us to go to the venue. We reached the reception at 10:45pm where we met a furious and super pissed off Naga. The promise to reach by 7pm was only delayed by 3:45 hours!!! Naga straight away attacked GD and accused him as the sole reason to delay all of us. As expected, we added more mirch masala to the story and convinced Naga that GD indeed was the culprit. Cornered and with nothing left to argue, GD promised Naga that he will be there by his side next morning at 3:30 am. We all knew that getting up at 3:15am without Naga’s help is impossible. So shamelessly we told Naga to wake us up in the morning if he wanted us to attend his wedding.

We all went back to the hotel around 1am and decided to sleep for a couple of hours. We told the cab driver to pick us at 3:30am and Kallu set an alarm for 3:15 am. Unfortunately, he kept his cell phone some 15 meters away from him. As expected, the alarm set off and no one answered it and all 4 of us continued with our sweet sleep. In the middle of the night, I felt Gogo kicking me and asking me what time it was. I told him it was 4.30am and slept off again. There was some abrupt silence for 30 seconds from Gogo … and suddenly he burst out the four letter F word that woke all of us. Instantly we realized that we missed Naga’s wedding – the very thing that all of us were here for. Dejected we all quietly went back to sleep. I agree that it was pretty shameless to go back to sleep again but what GD did was beyond imagination. He actually woke up, walked 10 meters, switched off the light in the room, came back to the bed and SLEPT. I think that was the most shameless act that could be done by anyone in the Bakar group. Looking at the clock, realizing that we missed the marriage and sleeping is one thing, but actually waking up and switching off the light so that he could sleep peacefully is another.

Finally, Kallu mama woke up at 4:45am and he actually woke everyone up. We got ready in 5 mins and were downstairs. Gogo called the cab driver to pick us while Kallu got hold of a local rickshaw driver’s number. He called the rickshaw guy at 4.45am … poor thing … the rickshaw guy’s mother picked up the call, woke up her son and he said that he will be there in 5 mins. So there we were, standing on the road waiting for cab/ rick. Unfortunately, both of them arrived together. If GD’s morning act was a disgrace what Kallu did matched it to an extent. Kallu mama just walked to the car; opened the door of the car; looked at the rickshaw driver and without uttering a word, just pointed to the car – signaling that we don’t care that we woke up your mother at a sub-human hour, we don’t care that you actually woke up and came within 5 mins – to hell with you; we are going in the car !!!!

Finally we reached the marriage hall at 5:00am and carefully chose the last seats to hide from everyone. The reason to hide from everyone was – Gogo was in hopelessly crumpled T-shirt that he had slept with in the previous night, I was in chappals with red eyes that were watering because of lack of sleep, GD’s eyes were blood red and he was uncombed. Needless to say that none of us had taken a bath. But kallu mama had raised the bar still higher – in addition to not taking a bath, he hadn’t even brushed his teeth. I don’t think anyone would have sat in a marriage mandap without a bath and without brushing. We realized that as the years are going by, the Bakar gang is taking stupidity and shame to newer depths.

After the hi’s and hello’s we quickly ejected from the venue and went to the beach to see the sunrise. I saw my second sunrise – where the sun rose from the sea being on the east coast. We then went back to the room, packed our stuff and got ready to visit the marriage venue – obviously we were hungry.

We saw Naga with a peepal leaf stuck on his hair. After the vulgarities of what was actually used to stick that peepal leaf, we attacked the food. With our belly’s full, we took Naga to a corner and Gogo/ Kallu gave him a KT session on do’s/ don’ts for the first night. Kallu mama was standing at the entrance and talking about porn, which got Naga really worried about the things that his relatives will hear if we stay any longer. We had another round of food and we ate till the time we could not move. After a brief photo session, it was decided to roam the city – Kailash Giri and Rishi Konda beach.

Kailash Giri is a hilltop that gives a beautiful view of the east coast and the city of Vishakhapatnam. There is a train that takes one around the hilltop. But when we reached the train had already left and gone some 50meters ahead. I don’t know what Gogo said to the people over there, but the train actually came back in reverse to accommodate us. Later we went to the Rishi Konda beach, where I and GD attacked some omlette’s while Gogo and Kallu took a dip in the Bay of Bengal.

With 5 hours to kill and the unrelenting heat, it was decided to head indoors to the CMR mall. We devoured Pizza Hut which was followed by a complicated round of going dutch on the expenses. Even expenses as low as 2 rupees were not ignored and finally the split came to Rs. 177/- per person. Kallu flatly refused to pay that as he hadn’t been a part of any of that. The discussion went out of hand and finally it was decided to head out for the sanity of other people in the restaurant.

Next task on our hand was to buy Jeans for Kallu Mama – he was to wear jeans after 16 years. Finally we settled on a pair of jeans in Levi’s and asked Kallu to wear it straightaway. General bakar followed till the time GD and I decided to take a leak. When we entered the restroom, we could see a part of jeans from the gap between the door and ground. Instant came out a roar … “huggrrraaayyyy” (I do not wish to translate this in Hindi/ English). GD and I devised a plan to pull out the jeans from that gap and run away. Imagining the scene, we laughed like lunatics in the restroom, zipped up and came out. After a round of Baskin Robin, it was time to move to the airport. Gogo had a flight to B’lore, Kallu, GD and I were to fly to Hyderabad and then me and GD were to carry on to Mumbai.

The journey in the flight was spent in Naga mode as we were too tired. So technically, we went all the way to the east coast, ate a LOT of food but did not attend either the reception or the marriage. Hopefully, we shall improve the next time when the opportunity presents itself either by Darindar, GD or yours truly.

Over and Out. Jai Bakar.

Missed a flight - Finally

As the title suggests, it finally happened. Saturday the 10th of September @ Mid- Continent Airport - Wichita, Kansas I managed to miss my first flight.

Given my past history, that I just about manage to catch all my modes of transport, be it bus, train or a plane; eventually i was going to miss one,  was a prognostication. The closest I had got is checking-in 10 mins before the departure time @ the Mumbai airport. Luckily those were the days when the 45 minute rule wasn't there and i managed to catch that flight escorted by the airline staff. 

The irony is that, all those times i managed to get onto my flight. This time i missed it even though i was at the airport more than 60 mins before the departure time. Worse part was that i could see my plane standing on the tarmac a good 10 mins and then take off. Blame the Delta airlines check-in procedure or just having 1 person at the counter handling a huge queue. 

The bottom line for me is never be at the airport on time; else I will miss the flight. They have put me on the next morning flight; guess i should just show up at the airport 15 mins before the flight departs.