The region of my origin has been a source of wide speculation for quite a few people I know. Although I find it quite strange, I must confess that it has been very entertaining, at times! Here are few incidents.
Scene I
Somebody once told me that I look like a farmer, hailing from Rajasthan! When I stared back at him, totally puzzled – he gave me some sort of a weird explanation about my shoulders and waist, that makes little sense to me – even now! Anyhow, at that time I had a crush on this cute Rajasthani chick, and I had thought that I looking like a farmer dude would help my cause! But thinking about it now, I guess there are no farms, or for that matter, farmers in Rajasthan! And damn, maybe that guy was gay! And in case you are really interested – that chick is long gone!
Scene II
A girl, who had won herself a holiday in Egypt, returned and told me that I look so much like an Egyptian. The reason for her comment, I figured, was my untrimmed goatee. So I asked her is it because Egyptian men kept goatees similar to mine? She replied in the negative and said that it was because my goatee kind of resembled the one on the Sphinx! I trimmed my goatee short that very evening! And if I remember right, at least a couple more guys have branded me as an Egyptian, all thanks to my goatee! And no – I do not trim my goatee short every time I get to hear this comment now!
Scene III
I had this friend from Pakistan, who was manning this telephone booth, in Italy. I used to spend quite sometime speaking with him, and a few of his customers – who came from various parts of the world. A lot of people from the sub-continent used to visit his shop, and I used to converse with them in Hindi. (Yes people, I do know Hindi! I just do not feel the necessity to speak in it though!) Anyhow, one fine day at the telephone booth, I met this guy and he seemed like he was a guy from Delhi.
Me: Are you from Delhi?
He: No, I am from Lahore.
Me: Oh? You look and speak like you are from Delhi, so I thought you are from there. (And this is coming from me – who has never visited Delhi!)
He: Okay, so where are you from?
Me: Bangalore.
He: Oh? And I thought you were from Pakistan! You look so much like a Pakistani!
Scene IV
I do not know if it is just me, but have you ever noticed that your photograph on the visa looks so different, from the photograph you submitted in the application for it? I wonder what those guys do with it! Anyway, a couple of my friends who got to see one such photograph told me that I looked like an Arab! Well, I hope you get the point! And I blame it on the wicked looking goatee again!
Scene V
Once while I was discussing about this very thing with a group of friends, one of them told me that I actually looked like a Mauritian! Ha! I guess, well over half the Mauritian population is Indian, so maybe this dude got a little confused!
Scene VI
I got to learn that a few people in office used to call me an Iranian, but I guess it was more a sort of a nickname than anything else. The one thing that I want to point out here is – I never felt offended about all this. Except for this one time when a bunch of colleagues came by my seat and started wishing me for Onam!
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Origin-al Fire!
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Nice Guys Finish Last!
I was speaking with a friend a little earlier in the evening, and she reminded me of how nice I was!
I am sure you guys are in shock after reading the previous line! I was in shock too when she told it! Come on - now that is something like an oxymoron, right?! Me, and nice?! No way!
Well, it is not that I try not to be nice or anything; nor do I have anything against these so called nice guys. It is just that, there are a lot of hassles if you are considered as a nice guy. You are always expected to be, you know - nice!
Now, that should not be too difficult, right?
I have absolutely no idea!
Think about it – back in school if you were considered as a nice guy, you were expected to behave, and be a role model for the rest of your classmates. Ha, if you were to ask my classmates, or for that matter, my teachers about what they thought of me - I am sure they would all collectively agree, without a shadow of a doubt, that they thought I would someday end up in prison! Not their fault – back then, even I had thought that I would!
Anyhow, coming back to my point - just in case, you do anything, that is remotely unacceptable in the nice world, you would be damned. People would look at you like you need to be banished or something. They would probably say – Oh, I did not expect this from a guy like you. Not just that, even if you continue doing nice things, but if it is not as good as the previous nice thing you did, you would still be screwed! Get the point? Expectations are always very high (and rising), and you would have to live up to it. What a waste of time living your life satisfying others expectations!
On the other hand, consider that you are branded as a bad guy. People do not mind when you do evil things. They are like, totally okay with that. That is what they expect you to do! In fact, even a random act of kindness, or more to say, not-niceness gets you brownie points! So, you are appreciated for doing something neutral! Now that, is wonderful, right?
Anyhow, since I am considered to be a nice guy, I do know I have a few troubled days coming up ahead - and I am bracing myself for the ride!
Monday, 2 November 2009
A picture is worth a thousand words
First stop at the fuel station. I thought they had tanked up, but just figured that they filled up only for a hundred bucks!
----------------------------------------------------------------------Breakfast. It can not get cheaper than this!
----------------------------------------------------------------------Banyan tree, right?
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----------------------------------------------------------------------This is one of the best roads we got to ride on!
----------------------------------------------------------------------Abandoned ant-hill!
----------------------------------------------------------------------Graveyard! Notice the freshly covered grave on the right!
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----------------------------------------------------------------------Just before we rode into the eucalyptus plantation
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----------------------------------------------------------------------Bird food!
Cornfield! And that is our photographer dude!
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----------------------------------------------------------------------Mine!
Wondering if we should climb it!
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Mowgli guy!
----------------------------------------------------------------------Curtains down!
----------------------------------------------------------------------Sunday, 1 November 2009
Road Trip To Wherever The Road May Lead!
While I was working in Italy last year, my friend and I travelled to a new place, on every single weekend or a holiday that we got! And quite a few of those were not pre-planned at all. We would just go to the train station and buy ourselves a ticket to a place, to which the next train was headed to! At that time, I contemplated doing the same once I got back home – traveling during the weekends, that is! But sadly, it never really took off. Thinking back now, I guess I have actually visited more places in Italy, than I have visited in India – although I was in Italy for only three months!
I was speaking to a few friends about this very thing yesterday, and it certainly got things rolling. In an instant, six of us guys decided to take our bikes and ride to some random village today! So this blog post, is precisely about this trip!
So, the plan was to start off at 6:30 in the morning, and ride towards Kothanur. We had no particular place to visit, and had decided to stop by at any place, or thing, or whatever that caught our attention, or amused us! That was the plan anyway!
While I called up the guys at 6:30, to check if they had started, no one (except one) answered the phone. Half an hour later, I found out that they were all still sleeping! So much for the planning!
So I suppose you guys are saying “oh crap”, in synchrony with me!
Fortunately, this is a little different from my other ‘sad-but-true’ stories! These guys sleeping did not mean the end of the trip, but merely a delayed start! We were more than an hour late, and a guy short; but we still were going! (And very strangely, I did not abuse these guys for being late! That is very unlike me, but I guess I should leave it for another post!)
First stop was at a fuel station to tank up for the journey. And one of the guys started off with an exhibition of his photography skills at the fuel station itself. Next stop was for breakfast. I am not too sure why, but we had decided to have our breakfast only at a place that fit into a village scenario. A guy selling stuff in a push-cart matched the criteria we were looking for, and it was, by far, the cheapest breakfast I have had in the last twenty odd years! And our camera guy took so many pictures of us eating, which would even put a very experienced (and very annoying) wedding camera guy to shame! Man, I wonder why those guys shoot people eating!
We were back on the road after our cheap breakfast, but stopped again within the next kilometre to pose for some more pictures next to a cool-looking tree. Actually speaking, it was more of a stump of a tree! There still is a debate on whether the tree was a banyan, or a peepal - but who the fudge really cares?! A little further down, we took a deviation into something that looked more like a joke, than a road! The aim was to get away from civilisation! And I think it was the single most awesome thing we did! We ran into a bunch of kids going some place with flowers and stuff. Can you imagine me, standing next to a bunch of kids with flowers?! Well, I have a picture to prove it!
We bid the kids goodbye, and got back on the road, if you can call it that! Soon, we hit a patch, where this non-existent road too seemed to disappear! Our stranded situation, sort of, attracted the attention of a few of the locals around there. And since I was the only guy in the lot who knew Kannada, I had quite a lot to understand! These people convinced us to go off-road, and that is exactly what we did! Oh, this stretch of about two hundred metres was amazing! We had to dodge bushes, and stones, and crap – while trying to still stay in balance!
Back on firm ground, it was time for more pictures. We found some cool looking ant hills, and a clock tower! Moving on, we came across a graveyard. Of course, we had to stop there! If not for a few people passing by, we would have lied down on the grave to pose for a few pictures! Damn those people! And yeah, we found a piece of bone by the grave, which we kept with us as a souvenir!
Just a little ahead, we found a plantation of eucalyptus trees. After a little fooling around, and trying to figure out our exact location using GPS, which by the way, was not one bit helpful, we decided to ride our bikes through the plantation! After a while, better sense prevailed, and we got out of it! Going ahead, we took another deviation (oh yes, another one!) into something that looked like a trench! I have never seen a bigger collection of houseflies, butterflies, and dragonflies in one location before this! Added to this, were the kites and eagles – they looked big enough to carry one of us and fly away! And oh, our camera guy between all this, took a picture of a beetle, a millipede and some crap we found there!
We got out of the trench and we were back on the road again. We paused briefly by a cornfield to snack on some stuff that probably contained more fat and cholesterol, than anything else! We tried to share some of it with a dog that came by, but it ran away as fast as it could - like we posed great danger to its life! Probably the dog was a little more concerned for its health than we were for ours!
The road we were now on looked like it would lead us into a jungle, but alas – it led us to a hostel building, and that too, in which a friend stayed! Talk about coincidence! It was almost like a Hindi movie type meeting! Anyway, this also served as a much needed pit stop for us!
We were back on the road again, this time an asphalted one, for a change! We took another deviation off it, and were on bumpy terrain soon. This road was absolutely horrendous. We were beginning to think that we had made a mistake by choosing to head this direction, but then – we found a stone quarry! Although I have been to many mines before, never have I been to one on a bike! In no time, we were riding down into the quarry! It was back to some more photography inside the mine!
After doing everything that can be possibly done in a mine, we got out of it! Just for your information, we figured that there are far too many things you can do inside a mine! And I tried my hand at getting a few wheel-spins on the bike and I think I did great! By now, it was almost noon, and the sun was kind of taking its toll too. We had to get back into a decent road, but chose not take the way back we came, just for some more adventure! Fortunately, we did find a decent road that we recognised, and headed back home! On the way back, we decided to take a shortcut, and that kind of added more flavour to our little adventure!
At this time, all were set to head back home, but the sight of a lake changed all that. One of the guys had to leave, so we ditched him and headed to the lake! The path to the lake was probably not even fit to be traversed by foot, but we guys rode our bikes on it! Although the water was not very clean, the sight was pretty cool!
Funny thing is, we attracted the locals each time we stopped. This time around, it was a kid – I have no clue how old he was, but he was about three feet tall! My friend asked him if he spoke any Kannada, Hindi or Tamil, but did not get any reply. We noticed that there was a hut nearby, in which lived four adult dogs, and two pups! By the way, the dogs looked extremely well fed. And looking at the way this kid was responding, we were beginning to wonder if the kid was adopted by these dogs – kind of like this Mowgli character!
Anyway, one of my friends did manage to communicate with this kid, and they kind of got attached to each other! The kid then started doing a few tricks to entertain him! He even jumped into the lake and started doing a few swimming things that I can not explain! We gave our cholesterol rich food to the kid and to his dogs before we left the place! These dogs were more than willing to eat this food. I guess it explains why they looked well fed!
So, finally it was time to ride back home. The trip was followed by a delicious lunch, and amazing hot shower (not in a group, of course!), and a lazy laid back afternoon! It was one hell of an amazing journey and I can easily classify this as one the coolest thing I have ever done! And one thing is for certain, we are going to do this again!
PS: I wanted to post this with the pictures, but I do not have them yet. So maybe I will put them up in the next post! Until then, goodnight!
And, thank you guys!
