One Small Wish

All I want to do right now, is sit under my desk and read Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. Am hooked.

Wind through my hair again

The weather has taken a fabulous U-turn and become glorious.

I'd forgotten the profound joy of being under an open sky at night, and having a strong wind blow through my hair.

Felt weird when I thought about it. Just shows I need to get away from office more often and be out more.

PS- Drove a rickshaw the other night, the first day of rainyness this season. Was great fun.

PPS- I guess I like the rains here more than the rains in Bombay. The only thing I missed about the Bombay monsoon was the arrival of rains with thunderstorms and lightening. It's electric and magical.

At Midnight

Ryan's birthday eve. We had barely recovered from a super (exhausting) trip to Bombay, and had to find something 'funner' to do. I really wanted Ryan to have a good birthday, but there aren't that many options in Hyderabad. In the middle of the week.

Ryan mildly said - "Anything's ok with me. But we could do something special. Like go to Bhongir fort for the night."

Of course we had to. Grant the birthday boy his wish. Though, half the time, in fact, until we got into the little vans we hired, I couldn't believe we were really doing it. That too after a few beers at Tuesday Night Beer and Rock Thingy.

7 of us packed ourselves into 2 cabs and started off. Sailusha, Ryan and me had our lovely camera and tripods. I definitely needed a night star gazing and photo-making and generally being excited.

The beer got me a bit drowsy though, and I was nodding off in the cab while SA tried his hand at a few jokes. It was about midnight when I imagined the landscape looked familiar (to Bhongir) and we stopped to ask for directions. And, stopped cops. Damn. They immediately looked suspicious to see drowsy girls and some foreigner boys in run-away cabs in the middle of the night. I blinked my eyes to open them wider and tried to look like a adventurous photographer who just had to be on that hill in the middle of the night.

Didn't work. Apparently, two lovers (both girls) had killed themselves recently (M.T.S.R.I.P) from the little hill and it was now shut at nights. Sucky luck. We tried our best, but since it was a cross road, we had to go the other way - to a little temple hill a few km off suggested by the cops.

It was ok. I was tired and the excitement was wearing off slightly. Just peaceful. Awesome breeze and a nice view. Drank some more beer. Felt glad to be there. Took out the tripod and made a few. And made Ryan have a birthday he wont forget too soon.

PS: We have oathed (yea, I know the word doesn't exist) to go to Bhongir sometime soon before sunset, and then sneakily stay there anyway. Let the cops hunt us down.

Rockstar baby

In Bombay again, at Mel's. After two intense days of sight-showing in the humid, heat of Bombay in May (no idea why we're doing it.)

It's 2:00 am. The Clash is playing. Rock the casbah.

Kabir, Mel's 4 month old son is asleep in the next room. We spent an hour admiring him, before he was allowed to move to mommy's arms and then to sleep. And a minute ago, I was watching him sleep and I thought to myself - here's a kid who's got it all sorted out. He's so happy and content and chilled out. He knows that right now, all he needs to do is sleep and eat - so that he can grow quick, and that's exactly what he's doing. Not screaming and crying. Sleeping. The rockstar in him.

Boy oh boy

I was walking around last evening and I saw an old man fallen on the ground, obviously not conscious or awake. There were two men standing around him, so although my first instinct was to react in some way, I kept walking by. Went past him. Old man. Those two men didn't seem to be doing anything. Just looking down at him.

The voice in my head nagged saying, 'Yea, you're just like the others. Walking past, doing nothing.' And I thought the old man must have someone who will want to know where he is - who will come to take him home. I turned around, went back, and asked the security guard standing next to him if he knew what had happened. The security guard was very disappointing. (A mall like Hyderabad Central should have better trained and more responsive / responsible security people.) He didn't look me in the eye and muttered something to himself. The second man was happy to talk to me. He gave me a bright smile and said, 'Oh, he's had a lot of alcohol. He'll wake up in a bit and go home by himself.'

I obviously had to do something - just that I had no idea what. I asked if they'd tried sprinkling some water at him. The smiling man smiled and said 'Yes, yes.'

I sat down and tried to shake him. He looked fairly decently dressed. Not like a homeless person. It was hot as hell. Not a nice place to be. No response though, I could barely shake him at all. But, just me being there, and doing something got a crowd gathering. People were looking to see what I was doing, not as much as what was wrong with the old man. I was soon going to run out of ideas - no one seemed to want to check if he had a phone or a wallet.

Super lucky for me though, an ambulance was stuck in traffic right there, (must have been there since before I stopped) but the attention I was getting caught theirs too and they turned to the side and came over. It was EMRI's emergency service, and they pulled over and got a bit of spirit to hold under his nose and revive him. And it worked. By now, a large crowd had gathered and kept growing. I was fairly annoyed, and as the man seemed to be in safer hands now, I left.

Makes me wonder about many things. Anyway.

PS: It's hot as hell today in Hyderabad. I was out all day doing my entrance test to FTII. Which went well, thanks. I had two hours to kill in between two tests, and I went off to a book store and read 70% of an Enid Blyton Famous Five story. Hated to leave it incomplete.

PPS: Saw Narnia last week. Fairly nice, but its feel was so similar to the Lord of the Rings movies, that it dulled it a bit for me. Now waiting to see Indiana Jones!

PPPS: Been on Twitter a lot, and so less blogging. And of course, India Daily Photo.

And Mob Wars.

CA

Suddenly, the song California Dreaming has more truth to it that I ever felt.

Push Button Delete

It's one of those days where I've written a dozen drafts and not published.
It's one of those days where I've got a groggy hangover and get surprised by how low my chair is each time I sink into it.
It's one of those days when I've been hit by one liners that (right now) seem so philosophical and moment-of-truth like, but will soon sound so lame.
It's one of those days when I hate every single word I've ever written on this blog, and want to delete it completely.

I read a story yesterday. Haruki Murakami's story story called 'Man-Eating Cats.' I hate to use the phrase 'I could relate with it', but that's what it felt like. Like it was my story. Or my story to-be. And right now, a flesh eating cat is devouring my mind.

San Francisco Dairies - Day 2

In retrospection. Day 2.

Woke up and wondered where the jet-lag was. Had been up until 3:00 am, sneaking onto some random wi-fi. Monday. We actually missed the Google Bus to campus and had to take a cab. $40 the very first day. And a Russian cab driver who tried his best to point out the fancy Valley headquarter buildings of Yahoo!, Adobe, Microsoft, and others that we'd already seen twice and could read the names of anyway. Although, it was already unusual to have someone talk so continually and ask so many questions.

Got to Googleplex and rushed off into meetings. Mostly pointless meetings, but what the hell. Had lunch at the famous and absolutely overwhelming Charlie's Cafe. I was honestly relieved to not be alone there. Great food though, stuffed myself with the most-non Indian food I could manage. I was surpised to see some of my colleagues hitting the Indian Cuisine section. Why? Curiosity, maybe... but not on your first day at Mountain View.

We sat on grassy grasses and watched funky, hot, Googlers strutting about, wearing everything from formals to spikey hair and shorts. And of course, pretty girls walking their doggies. Sweet California air. (Those three words, I'm going to repeat a dozen times in this series.)

More meetings and finally a bus back to San Jose. We had no guide today, so we took a cab to the Great Mall, at San Jose, and spent an hour in frantic shopping. That was the part I really hated. I had 45 minutes before the mall shut, and I can't even put a number to the showrooms glittering at me. Shopped a bit and then exited the mall.

Now, the unusual thing is that there's still evening light around at 8:00pm. Which is like a 6:00pm in India. That much light. Which in India means, the night is just beginning, and get ready for traffic, noise and crowds of people.

When I exited the mall at 9:00pm, it was dark, and deserted. No cabs, hardly any people, and cops driving around looking at things suspiciously. Had to call for a cab and wait, and wait, and wait, and realize that all the restaurants in San Jose are likely to be shut already. Walked around, in near panic, and finally found a pita place and ate those enormous servings that they serve in the US.

The girl behind the counter had a dozen piercings on her face, but was friendly enough to help us pick our pitas. A man on the table next to ours was crazy drunk, red in the face, and gulping down his pita. He got up, pushed his chair straight into my colleague - Tasneem's - and stumbled off to the rest room. I was fairly alarmed by his size and obvious state of drunkardness.

After pita, we returned to the hotel, it was really too cold to wander around outside. I was slightly disappointed with the day - didn't see much, not even much of Googleplex, couldnt shop, and everything being shut so early was depressing.

Waiting for the camera, and well, Google conference.

Random Thought x 554

I'd rather be the girl with the broken heart, than the girl whose heart breaks everyday.

Maybe.

Random Thought x 406

When the hero of your story dies, you feel...

Awkward? Unusual? Weird.

Random Thought x 239

Not a single photo does justice to what was my week at California.

And I just poured a bottle of water over me to beat the heat. No use.

< Interjection here >

I'm back home. After a fabulously eventful week. I will continue the SF Diaries - in retrospective mode. But I'm just taking a few minutes of an 'ass roasting' (my new everyday word) day at work to say:

1. It's hot. Which reminds me that I said the exact same thing one whole year ago. I saw a dozen people eating ice-cream after lunch today.
2. It's good to be back. The only thing that struck me the most yesterday was when I was trying to cross the road and of course, there were about 300 genuine attempts to run me down by cars, buses, and bikers on a busy street outside office. Yea. A drastic change from the US where even if you step off the pavement onto the road, a car 500m away will halt and insist that you cross.
3. Dooce. Was catching up on my favourite blog and I saw this post. It made me think that in a few years, her dog Chuck is going to die. And boy, just that thought tore my heart out. Cause I know what it is like to lose a doggy full of love.