I was at one of my best friend's wedding at Allahabad - a medium size city in northern India - it was a fabulous affair and the whole thing went from 6:30pm till 6am! Luckily we were staying at the same hotel where the wedding took place so slept thorough most of it!! (Had no sleep in 3days...for some other unattached reasons).

My friend as usual was very excited and happy and looked very decent in a maroon sherwani and headgear (helmet). The wedding procession was small - mostly close friends and family.

Due to some other 'personal' reasons I was able to reach on the very day of the wedding missed an opportunity to spend some quality with him for the last time - things change after one's married, seen many tigers being turned into goats!

According to  my friend his wife is a religious lady who has asked him to go vegetarian atleast on Mondays and Saturdays - believe me he was still happy - there was a time when this man could eat a regular KFC bucket all by himself - presume this is what 'woman power' is all about!

The weather got a bit warm around 20deg C - the wedding procession - Barat - took approx 1.5hrs to cover a very small distance - loud spearks blaring and absolute sober people dancing like mad while my friend sat in a nice air conditioned Hyundai - which as per custom was covered with an assortment of flowers. Im a backbencher at weddings - like to stay hidden in places where people cant see me and drag me to dance on the streets - and if someone still spots me being happy in my own crazy way, I suddenly develop ankle sprain - believe you me its the best possible and time tested excuse for not dancing on the streets!

The thing I hate most is when so called 'friends' dont show up even when they are just a few hours' drive/flight away - you cant be busy enough on a Sunday to miss your friends wedding which hopefully will happen only once in his lifetime!

Relationships in our part of the world are like cakes - you mix up 2 people and pour the batter into a mould and only time tells how good the case is and interestingly here one gets to eat his own cake and know how good bad he/she baked it!

Chees to a long and blissful married life for one of my best-est friend & his lovely wife!

Year: 2010.....Same Shit Different Day!!
(remember how the early Terminator movies displayed dates...imagine that happening with the text above)


I remember watching Star Wars & Terminator movies in my childhood and thinking that by the time I'll grow up we'll have robots doing everything and cars driving themselves! I often wondered what Jeeves would look like in the future!! But here we are with the same old stuff, same old policewallah- no Robocop, cars dont even fly and some still get excited by UFO sightings...so what's new??

By the way, who here thinks that people who cant form proper sentences tweet?

Yes! Farmville the very innocent, play farmer game on Facebook has a very active mafia. The members most of whom are females, kids and a few men, are taking over Facebook. Its very simple join Farmville or leave Facebook!

Initially I used to get routine invites, say 15-20 per day - when I regularly ignored their invites, they started sending gifts to lure me in but when these gifts were also ignored, I got emails asking me very politely, inbetween general conversation to join and 'help' the sender out in a very innocent game on Facebook known as Farmville and when I refused to join in one of my replies to these people, I got a phone call from one of the top bosses - "...join Farmville and become my neighbour". I was also very specifically told "...we do not need you to play Farmville, you just join, we'll manage the rest!"

HOLY CRAP BATMAN! I was shaking, shivering and shit scared to even log on to Facebook!

Today, after gathering a truckload of courage I logged on to Facebook, I had 178 requests to join Farmville and I wasnt even online for more than 20 seconds...I got a message, you've still not joined! Im sending you an invite join NOW! I quickly closed the window and am here writing this - if I disappear...its the Farmville Mafia!
I gotta go hide before they find me online!

Went shopping today, bought some stuff and got stuck in traffic! Festive madness & utterly butterly chaotic traffic courtesy your friendly neighbourhood cop who decided to show up today 'coz its Diwali time. Now everyone who's from India will know what Im talking, the others can keep guessing!

Coming back to the Altis, the toyota people brought the car for a test drive yesterday. The place where I live, erstwhile posh locality turned hub of chaos has everything within a radius of 2kms - High Court, Lower Courts, Revenue Board, Collector's Office, Excise Office, Central Drug Research Institute, Planetarium, Wholesale market, heritage sites...you name it we have it! If it was UK, I wouldn't even need a bicycle to anywhere, but this is Indiyah & I'm too scared to walk! Now coming back to why I described my locality, I'm happy as well as scared by the thought of driving an even more wider car. Scared because there's hardly any space for my exsiting Honda and happy coz knowing that I cant squeeze through the traffic, I wont try too many tricks and that my friends will keep my BP in control - and probably I'll learn to meditate one day when I'm stuck in traffic!!!
Now Hyundai also has a reason to be happy by this, I'll be buying a small car very very soon and Hyundai at present has the best small cars in India.


Poor old Dravid: he's like a spare tyre in a Civic - sparingly used and no alloys! Think he should announce retirement from ODIs.
Prasad & Robin Singh: Good to know they're going home & its Dhoni's turn after we loose to the Aussies at home. The man needs some rest, he's mentally not there!
PC the Homie - Im telling you, after the Karnataka CM's crash, he's scared of choppers - http://bit.ly/1le7LN


Its time to eat some Gulab Jamuns...Adios Amigos!

Diwali is fast approaching, don't feel like working full time anymore but cant afford to stay away.

I had been car shopping for the past few days, considering the Civic & Corolla Altis. Though Im a die hard Honda fan but still the Corolla seems a better package overall and the Civic seems absolutely under kitted!

Probably Honda has had enough of selling cars to us, every time someone visits their showroom they have to do the customer a favour of selling a car! Enough is enough ;)

Anyhow, hope to get the finance etc sorted with a few days and have the new car by next week if possible!

Speaking of cars, one cant help but think of the roads and the crazy 2 wheelers on it...i'd appreciate if anyone out there can tell me as to exactly what these guys do?!?

There was an interesting bit of news in the papers today, "BJP MP returns Vijay Mallya's Diwali Gift". Now who in their right frame of mind would return a gift - esp. when its a bottle of Black Dog!! Talk about a party gone absolutely bonkers - they relate the whisky to being Anti - Indian culture and decency! Absolute Bullshit!

Now I know India is full of screaming, shreiking 'unclejis' and 'auntijis' turning up at social gatherings wearing plaster of Paris for makeup and the latest bollywood crap  making an absolute silly attempt of hiding what they're drinking by covering their glasses with napkins but come on, one hand we talk of freeing up wines from the evil clutches of Excise Departments and on the other hand we have MPs talking absolute bullshit and linking alcohol with Indian values!

Maybe its the Indian mindset of trying to cover up the obvious. Everyday we see girls riding scooties wearing ninja costumes - we know you look horrible! Napkins on glasses at parties - we know you're not trying to keep floor clean from the condensation, its alcohol you're trying to cover up! Come on people be comfortable with yourselves, be confident of what you do and understand making people believe that you don't consume alcohol doesnt make you a SAINT!

Anyhow, its now time to fetch myself a glass of red ...CHEERS!




Things keep happening around me which seem totally out of control - so no use fretting over them!