The last couple of days or so, there have been certain things that have made me angry, usually, not an expression I associate myself with. Probably, it has been a collection, and then in turn culmination of the events that preceded these couple of days, thats got out that reaction. Luckily, no one has borne the ire, and I have managed to keep it under wraps.

I think it would require another couple of incident free days for me to be back to...the angerless state that I was before. The good part is that I would be able to ensure that it unnecessarily does not get out, and targets people not associated with it, the not-so-good part is that I still need a couple of days.

And in the end, I really find people, who do not reply back to e-mails (notice the 's') asking pointed questions, the most courtseyless of the lot. Not replying back to phone calls could be attributed to amnesia, not answering back 'n' number of e-mails over a period of a month, reeks of an unhealthy disregard for the other person's existence and a sheer lack of respect.

However up the ladder, you are perched.

Professional Couriers - NEVER Send stuff through them

Yeah, the title of this post may sound a little bit of a frustration coming out, but currently, it is not only that, but also, steam coming out of my ears.

The story is simple. I send a package consisting of three VCDs to Chandigarh, through a courier guy in Mumbai. It never reaches its destination. Ten days later it comes back. Apparently because the address given is wrong.

I recheck the address. It is as perfect as it could be. Still, it is back in Mumbai. I go to collect it from the local courier company I had sent it to.

The three CDs have suddenly become one. The local courier guy says he has no clue, but his estimate is that whatever may have happened, would have happened at the PROFESSIONAL Courier guys at Delhi. Basically, the Professional guys had very neatly removed the two of the VCDs from the package.

I ask him about my damages.

2 CDs cost me Rs. 200. The maximum damages I am liable for is Rs. 100 according to the Professional Courier guys. So, if I had sent 10 VCDs worth 1000 bucks, I would have still got a hundred. Which is CRAP.

I am sorry, but in this day and age, this is not just crap, but also most unprofessional, unethical, unreasonable, and downright sly and amounts to cheating.

They lose me as a customer, that is for sure. And I hope some more of them.

Tagged by Veena!

Veens tagged me. It is a long tag. Or, it was a long tag when I first read it on her blog.

Then, I realised that it looked long because of the length of her answers. Reminded me of some of answers we wrote in our Macro-Economics paper.

And it was supposed to a Macro level view of Economics. What hypocrisy. Anyways, coming back to Veena...

...I will try to not let the answers to this one, go the Macro Economics..read...Veens...way!

What Book Are You Reading: I had just about started with John Wright's 'Indian Summers' and forgot it in a friend's car. So, technically, I ain't reading anything.

Favorite Board Game: Monopoly, hands down. Scabble comes a close second. But if I were to extend the question a little, I can live on 'Teen Patti'. And there is a new Cards game I learnt last weekend. But yeah, basically, the gist of the matter is, that I like Cards.

Favorite Magazine: None in particular, but I so wish I could use the name of the Magazine I write for, Cricket Today. Aur toh koi padhta bhi nahi hoon.

Favorite Smells: Forget favourite, I can tell you the smell my system cannot accept, the 'tadka' ka smell. I go cough cough...splutter splutter splutter...gaadi bandh, everyday at 12 in the afternoon, because that is when it first engulfs my room. After that, any smell is good/favourite smell.

Favorite Sound: I love some of the voices I hear. Mitali Mukherjee is one. There is a cricket host, Mayanti Langer. And there would be some others, I cannot recollect. But yeah, basically, I like 'human sounds'.

Worst Feeling In The World: To be taken for granted...but then, I also feel that it is as much one's own responsibility as it is the other person's. Phatkey deneke to such people and move on.

What Is The First Thing You Think Of When You Wake?: It depends. Usually, the pecking order is,

a. On a match day, 'Who won the toss, and whos batting?'.

b. On a non match, weekday, 'What is the Sensex doing today?',

c. And on a weekend, when there is neither a match nor the markets...'Hey...what's the time?'

Favorite Fast Food Place: Oven Fresh, Shivaji Park, loads of good memories attached with it.

Future Child's Name: Sania...I just love the 'same name' Mirza.

Finish This Statement. "If I Had A Lot Of Money I'd" Give up on my current job and follow my dreams. Don't want to start off with what my dreams are, but the fact of the matter is, that my dreams would pay enough to lead a life, but not a luxurious one. And so, they have been suppressed for now...if I did have some more money, probably!

Do You Drive Fast?: Yeah, I drive people out of my room fast. I drive them crazy very fast. Apart from that, nothing much.

Do You Sleep With A Stuffed Animal?: You must be kidding, ain't it?

What Was Your First Car?: I shall pass till after I start earning and get it!

Favourite drink: A Tall Glass of Salted Lassi, divine!

Do You Eat The Stems On Broccoli?: I don't even eat Brocolli man.

If You Could Dye Your Hair Any Color, What Would Be Your Choice? : Black

Name All The Different Cities/Towns You Have Lived In.: Lived? I mean, what is the threshold, in terms of number of days, for it to tantamount to live? Anything more than a couple of months, it has only being Mumbai. Pune, I stayed in, for a couple of months. Visited some other cities. Period.

Favorite Sports To Watch: Cricket is an obvious. But sometimes, I like watching Hockey as well. I dislike Soccer, think it is one of the most over hyped games around. That is my view anyways.

Nice Thing About The Person Who Sent This To You: I like her blog. One of the more attractive blogs I have come across, it seems that she really likes her blog and works to make it a better place...the blog that is. Baaki, personally, toh nai jaanta!

What's Under Your Bed?: I just saw, nothing, a couple of shoelaces only.

Would You Like To Be Born As Yourself Again?: Yeah, that is no issues. I would not mind being Tom Cruise either.

Morning Person Or Night Owl?: No set rules, sleep when I get sleep, wake up when I need to. But in my frankest opinion, had it not being for the absolute necessity, I find 'Sleep' as a sheer waste of life.

Over Easy Or Sunny Side Up?: Huh? What did you say?

Favorite Place To Relax: Home, no other place like that.

Favorite Pie: A pastry person I am, no pie-shai for me.

Am I the first Veens? :-)

Cya later...aligator!

That is the end of that. Won't miss it one bit.

Time for a new inning...!

P.S. Post-grad done.

The Past

he sat alone, he looked out,
the silence was loud,
it was deafening, it blared...
he didnt notice the passing cloud.

his gaze remained distant
thoughts ebbed and fell,
dark remained the skies above
nothing his face did tell

yet it told a story...
a story so long, so deep
it had left him alone, and forlorn
into the distant past, it was a peep

his book opened, it was the first chapter
and it was all hunky dory.
and then he remembered the days...
which changed his story

the silence was suddenly shattered,
by the noise of the past,
his past, that still remained...
it was here again, here to last.

The ass hurts as crazy as an Akshay Kumar stunt. The feet pain bad, as if hit by a Waqar Younis yorker. The back's almost broken to the point of no return. And the throat's sore like a wounded soldier.

But there is a satisfaction. Writ on the face.

27th April should be a much better experience.

The saga continues...

As a P.S. to the previous post, today none of the electrical or electronic items worked. That is because, it requires electricity to make them do so, and just fifteen minutes before the first IPL match of the day, the same failed.

For about half an hour, nothing worked at house. Including my brain.

So, I slept off. A welcome break actually.

And then there were none...

The electronic and the electrical appliances in my house seem to have found a funny method of mocking the living daylights out of me. In the last couple of days that is.

First it was the turn of my laptop. Quite simply, it protests. every four to six hours that it. And it also believes in silent protests. It goes silent, by shutting down automatically. Without any heed to what I may be doing. Kuchh bol bhi nahi sakte usko.

The it is the turn of my Internet. Fluctuates like a moody man. (I have deliberately kept the word woman out of this, simply because I do not want any brickbats, and want to keep the mood light!). So, while there are occasions when it's slow and steady in speed, there are also others when it refuses to allow me to do stuff online. Wicked, wicked guy. Does not know how important it is to me. Or probably knows it a little too well.

Next up is the Television Cable. we have a set top box. That has started working like MS Windows. Had to restart the set top box, again and again. Till before I switched my TV off. I can still watch him show me the mocking finger. Grrrr....

Last may, there is the fan, which got filled with water due to the overhead construction work. So it refuses to work. As if getting wet in that water made it sick with cold. And even if it did, doesn't it know that if it works, it will dry itself too? Idiot I tell you.

I was actually searching around, as to what are the rest of things which could prove a little troublesome in the near future. Kaun jaaney.

And yeah, there is a huge difference between an electrical and an electronic item. This was one of my viva questions back in Engineering days, and let me assure you all, I still have no clue about the technical difference. Something related to electrons and electricity.

But hey, engineering got done some light years back. So, it is ok...

The so called obstacle out of the way - for now - and that was followed by two big pieces of news. Unsurprisingly, both were related to cricket; one, we are seven of us going to watch the Mumbai Indians play Bangalore RCs at Wankhede, and rather surprisingly, I am the common link between all. No one knows each other!

There is a blog friend - sorry Anjuli, had to call you that - there is a school friend, a grad friend, an iSport friend, and a couple of them from MBA. So, it promises to be weirdly funny! Unfortunately, with cameras not allowed inside the stadium, it is going to be a little dampner.

Somehow, every time this plan's come up, I have not been able to resist thinking of the previous ODI that I went for to Wankhede. Shockingly, Peeya had enjoyed it, and that was much to my happiness! I wanted to move out of the stadium thinking that the match is over and the lady may get bored, and here she was, exhorting me not to leave the seat till the last ball is bowled. That is because she wanted to watch the 'cute' R.P. Singh bat! R.P. never got a chance to bat incidentally.

The second big thing that's happened, has actually not happened, but is in the process of happening, and so, will update it when it really happens. That should be in around a week's time.

That said, IPL begins tomorrow and I can barely wait. I mean, not that I am expecting too good a cricket, but the hype and hoopla surrounding the event makes it the much sought after one. The packaging has been good, now for the content. That is the question that would be on everyone's lips, would be about how well does the excitement manage to rub onto the masses in turn making the event a hit. The e-mail forwards on various IPL squads and the schedule of the same has already started circulating. I have got four such mails - which has an excel sheet attached with the same details - so far, and I am dead sure of another half a dozen till by the end of the first week.

Convocation is just under 10 days to go. Not that I am terribly excited, and based on the cricket assignments that I need finish, I may even give it a miss. But then, a convocation is another event which is probably as overhyped as IPL, and so by the same stretch of logic, I should not be 'bunking' it. Lets see, will cross the river when I come to it.

Apart from that, the last two days were spent in college. I had no option but to be there, and it was not as bad as I thought it would be. Had a nice little 'gibberish' talk session with a couple of the guys, and then was onto Brios' for coffee with another friend.

The coffee wa great, but surprisingly the electricity kept going. The last I remember, it had assumed the mantle of the disappearing act, four times, and in the end we decided to leave. For me, Brios' - in Juhu - is a better coffee shop than the other two, CCD or Barista, simply because there is a better seating arrangement than the latter. The variety, incidentally, is as good, if not better there as well.

Now for tomorrow.

Gyaan for the day...again!

Gyaan for the day...second one of the week: Whatever has to go wrong, will go wrong, but even when it does go wrong, there are 'n' number of things that could have happened, which would have been worse than whatever's gone wrong.

That is exactly what describes my last couple of days. Things and plans did go a little haywire, the first reaction was a little bit of a gloom, but then, came the above realisation. It was not as if I had been told that I got only a week to live. Or worse. And it will pass. And so will I.

So life's back to normal, and there is hope and lots of excitement.

Incidentally, IPL is less than a week away, and Mumbai Indians play their match next Sunday. The ame is going to be played at the Wankhede, and the ticket rates are a reasonable Rs.500. I am definitely going for a few matches, including this one. Anyone else, who is interested in an assured entertainment cum cricket, can let me know. We are already four of us, and more the people, merrier, funnier, and more exciting it is. Two is company, three is crowd, but at Wankhede, 40000 is fun. So, let me know!

Ajantha Mendis video!

This is for all you cricket fans who missed having watched the mystery spinner, Ajantha Mendis!
A must watch, how he's spun the ball both ways, with a googly and a doosra to boot! The video is at the end of the article here

He was incidentally the reason why I remained awake through the whole night, excitedly watching him bowl and spin his magic web over the hapless West Indian batsmen! Slept at 4 a.m. with a feverish excitement of a 14 year old lad, who has found his first love. Okay, no gay jokes please, that was meant to be an analogy, so please be kind!

Read more about him here

Gyaan for the day: The key to achieving anything that you want and like to achieve is to never give up on trying for it. I very nearly gave up on something recently, because I was a little put off and demoralized. Some divine intervention, and I tried again...and again.

I may not have succeeded again, yet, but I am on the right track again. The rock's moved an inch, I am sure it will start rolling soon, if not soon, probably later. But it will.

With this gyaan for the day over and done with, these last few days have been of two types. One where in I have loads of writing assignments, and the others like this one, when I am a total lukkha. With the stock of the movies on my laptop extinguished, I am desperately looking forward to joining a gym/library. But again, it is my laziness that has put paid to any such aspiration. And I also just realised that this is in total contrast to my gyaan of the day.

I think I am too lazy for things that do not matter so much. Gym and library just got included in the list.

Barbeque Nation, Bandstand and laughter

Meeting some people is a pleasure, come what may. It was one such night yesterday, when I got out of the house - to meet people that is - after a long time, in fact for the first time after recovering from the illness. And meeting up the Mastek gang, gave the same feeling as one gets on seeing a hot knife go through butter....smooth! That it was fun, would be an understatement.

The place we dined was a restaurant that went by the name of Barbeque Nation. It has a very rudimentary, but reasonably useful website here. It basically is a tikka place which has tables fitted with tandoor. The tikkas are put on the tandoor by the BN guys, and get slowly roasted. One can have them as and when one needs them. And the variety is fascinating. One can sit and relax and talk over, not coffee, but tandoor! The tikkas are unlimited and then comes a buffet of dinner. This is followed by the dessert - gulab jamuns for me - which all costs a total of Rs. 500 + taxes. Not very economical, but when you talkng about six of you, laughing away to glory at virtually everything - or probably nothing - reminiscing those ol' days, sitting there for three hours, it works out okay.

Incidentally, this is in Bandra, and when one talks Bandra, one definitely looks at paying Bandstand our respects :-) So, we drove down to BS, had a coffee each - after such a heavy meal, I could not - and sat there, cotinuing to talk gibberish but yet, have a hearty laugh. So the topics varied from who sat on which desk at Mastek, to how many strands of hair remained on the PM's head when we left the company to whch bigshot got fired by whom! And each of these lines were interspersed with incessant laughter, which, as I look back, was barely necessary! But then, not everytime do you are with people you really enjoy being with, ain't it!?

Cheers to a great evening :-)

The wait...

The wait, sometimes, is the most excruciating part of anything.

It has been just around twelve hours for me and I am already counting down. Or up.

I shall sleep alright, that is no major concern, but tomorrow, the toss ups are going to be many. Till the thing that I want to happen, happens.

Till it doesn't it is going to be a long long day.

And if and when it does...I can safely say, it may just be the best thing to have happened to me for a long long time. Shall update whenever the whole thing is clearer.

For now, the wait, is very excruciating.

So after the weekend was spent - and so was I - in finishing the freelance assignment, the day looks much sunnier than the last two. That is because, I did not get out of my room then. Anyways, I am done!

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The date of joining either the company has not yet been informed, same is the case with location. With all due respects to other people, I really hope it is NOT anything apart Mumbai or Pune, and with Pune not been one of the options, that leaves out only Mumbai. There were talks of being sent to Chennai as well, and that would be nothing short of disaster. Not because of the usual parameters one associates with the city, just that it is too far from home...too too far! And with the personal issues of being that far for something that pays equal to being at home, I would definitely prefer home.

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So today, Mumbai celebrates the No-Honking day. Or is it the whole of India, am not sure. The point here been - and I talk Mumbai specifically - that the incessant noise that one hears on the streets, is not only due to honking. It can be heard each time we celebrate a festival like Ganesh Chaturthi, Diwali or likes, every time, we express our happiness when the Indian team wins, every time a politician wants to address huge rallies at a Shivaji Park, each time a marriage procession wants to show us how happy they are, and yes, every time, the road is so messed up, that one's gut and the rest of the anatomy wants to travel places inside one's body, and the traffic in the city allows you to walk at a faster pace than you drive...

The problem is much more deep rooted than just that. And as I see it, has no solution to it. A no-honking day is not even a patch that one's trying to apply, it's a sham. Probably sounds a little more harsh, and cynical, but I really do not see the point. Probably someone else would.

Internet is like a wicketkeeper, you notice it only when it stops giving you the desired service.

Now, while philosophy has never been my forte, the last two days have been a struggle with my service provider going for a bit of a snooze, ensuring my frequent trips to the cyber cafe. And if that was not enough, it was only last night that I got an assignment to write 50 cricketing articles in a period of two days for a sum of money.

Thankfully, the thing is back to functioning normally, and I can get to the work. The assignment incidentally has been slow going, have just finished with the 9th article of the 50 needed, and have used almost 5 hours. At this rate of half an hour per article, it should take me not less than 20 more hours, meaning that I shall not be sleeping much tonight!

The only solace is that I had asked for it!

Your Thinking is Concrete and Random

You are naturally inquisitive and curious. You're excited by new ideas, and you are a true independent thinker. You are interested in what is possible. You like the process of discovery. You are often experimenting, challenging old ideas, and inventing new concepts. Rules, restrictions, and limit don't really work for you. You have to do things your own way, and you can't be bothered to explain yourself.

My Audio at iSport

This is my audio podcast on the cricket world over in the last fortnight. If you a cricket fan, do comment on the content and what you feel about the whole set of issues.

If you are not one, listen anyways, your feedback on the non cricketing bit would be very important for me.

This is the link, click here

People usually know when they have messed up something. They realise on most occasions that it could be attributed to themselves, whatever has been screwed up.

And sometimes, they dont.

I have screwed up on a couple of issues, big time. There was a past relationship, that could have been handled better, and there were a couple of other things that I think, though not entirely my wrong doing, could have been cooked better.

And then there were some behaviours that leave me as stunned as a kid in a dance bar - to use one of the Siddhuisms. These are those who exhibit a complete disregard for anything apart from the first two words of the title of this blog, and most of the times it is at the expense of something and more importantly, someone, else.

In the last one year or so, I have encountered certain such people, who have been difficult to fathom allright. Not that it is necessary to try, but it is human nature to reason out the whys and hows of anything, and what better place than this to do so. Because the only other option would have been to pay the people back in the same coin, act and stoop as low 'em and get even. And no, its just that I dislike confrontations, and from prior experiences these confrontations just turn into ugly, verbal slanging matches, with the person with a better dose of sarcasm feeling vindicated.

The point rarely, if ever, reaches through to the other person. At least, being silent over the whole issue, may just give a small food for thought about the whole issue. Not that it changes the mindsets of people, and I dont have any great illusions of that either, but adding fuel to the fire is a charade in futility.

The only flip to this kind of silence is that it could very well be perceived as one's weakness, and that is as far from truth as Anu Malik from originality. Or Rakhee Sawant from decency.

Patience and endurance, post the event, is usually not a sign of any weakness, it is a sad resignation to the fate that one grossly misjudged a person.

I did so. Like never before.

Learnt it the hard way. Again, no better way to learn too. I am really sorry that destiny made me ever encounter such people, but it was a learning curve all the way. A hard one at that.

Race and Inside Man

Have watched a couple of movies in the last few days, Race was one, the other was viewed on my laptop, went by the name of Inside Man.

I am not a huge movie buff, for me, after spending more than ten hours a day of my free time on cricket, it is virtually impossible to be a connoisseur of movies. Add to that blogging and reading fiction, movies come a distant fourth.

Still, I enjoy a couple of genres of movies, senseless, mindless comedies for one, the other is the Abbas Mustaan style of thrillers. Basically I like suspense and thrillers, Sixth Sense is an all time favourite, 100 Days excited the living daylights out of me when I had seen it as a kiddo, but Bollywood has not been too well served with this genre. The reason could be simple, such movies can rarely be watched more than once - i.e. rewatched after knowing the suspense - and many of the people who end up watching it once have this uncanny habit and a knack of revealing the end in one way or the other. This ensures that the audiences do not throng the cinema houses as often as they would to watch SRK say 'kuchh kuchh hota hai, you are idiots and will never understand' or something to that effect.

Anyways, that was enough of a prologue for the movies that I saw. The first one was Race. I was hugely disappointed, and this could be plainly attributed to the fact that I am an Abbas Mustan fan, I like their brand of suspense, and the way their plot twists and turns all the way usually. Shockingly, audiences had not taken a liking to their previous flick, Naqaab, which I enjoyed immensely. This one though was different. Probably I expected too much out of the movie, and it failed to live up to it. My personal take on suspense movies or even books for that matter, and its USP is that it brings out the 'whodunnit' factor in the audiences, that causes them to think, review and come out with the solution as early as possible in the story. Unfortunately, this movie had a loads happening, in turn not only confusing the audiences - at least it did that to me - but also causing one to give up on thnking rationally for the suspect. I mean, I actually told Peeya, with whom I had gone for the movie that one never knows the way it is going, it could well be the neighbour's cook who could have been involved.

And mystery for the sake of mystery usually falls flat on its face. For me, it became boring beyond a certain point and I lost interest.

Contrast that to the other one I watched, Inside Man, again a thriller with the plot revolving around a bank robbery. A simple, clean movie, sharp and incisive, and one that can be watched again despite knowing the end. In fact, after having watched Race the week before, I kept looking for unnecessary turns and twists, but found none. And that heightened the experience of watching it.

I did watch another one, Cruel Intentions, but that was in fits and starts and hence I could not really enjoy it too much.

'Bandra Shopping'

Now, I don't live under the pretensions of being a shopoholic, but I am a patient co-shopper. I can stand for times without end - eternity in short - and assist with opinions and advice, till it is not shopping for myself. For myself, the whole process ends in a jiffy, think, select, pay, buy. A simple, four step process.

Without meaning to sound sexist, it does take a little more than that, amongst most of the women I have been shopping with. Which is okay, given that not everyone can be the same. But what happened last week, took the cake, and beat the living daylights out of the so-called patience levels I normally exude. So-called I say, because I realised then, that either my co-shopper needs some serious shopping advice, or I need Dabur Glucose Energy. Or Boost. Or whatever.

I was out for what she calls, 'Bandra Shopping'. She is X. I am naming her X as well.

So X takes me along with her for Bandra shopping which is defined as roaming on the streets of Linking Road, window shopping in windowless shacks, bargaining and haggling and involving co-shoppers for the same, not buying anything in the end, and most importantly, not entering a single shop whose turnover would be anything more than a thousand bucks a day. Which was the good part. The not so good one was when X actually decided to buy something.

That should have sent my alarm bells ringing and warned me. The dimwit that I am, I got real excited instead, X is actually going to buy. BUY from Linking Road.

So we reach the two way linking road, one that goes from Bandra to Mahim, the other that goes in the other directions. The shopping item(s) were ear rings and Osho Slippers. Under normal atmospheric conditions both these entitities can be obtained from the road that leads us from Mahim to Bandra. That fateful day, it was different.

Some BMC van had ensured that the hawkers had ben dispersed on all the sides of both the roads, ensuring that shopping may just not be easy. So here we are, on one side of the road, trying to search for the Osho guy, but finding nobody. Someone says he would be on the other side of the road. So, we attempt to cross the road. For simplicity, this was our first attempt, count the rest of 'em if you want to. Also, for people who are not too well versed with this portion of the Linking Road, crossing it is can generally be included as one of the tasks of a 'Who Dares Win' or a 'Roadies' Game show, and it could end up in a tough competition.

So, with a great difficulty we reach the other end, when Madam X decides to not buy Oshos at all, because she would have no space to carry them home - which incidentally is not Mumbai. She instead decides to have Pani Puri. I wait.

We cross back, because the ear rings are found on the previous side. We search for this man, and success kisses our feet. The guy is actually there, and Madam X maanges to settle for one pair of cute ear rings worth ten bucks. The only problem is that she finds it costly. Especially given that she is planning to buy two sets. Twenty bucks is damn expensive and she needs to haggle. The guy looks at her like she is a first. Madam X looks at him like he is not only the first, but has quoted a price thousand percentage above what he should have. The staring match lasts for a couple of minutes, after which the bargaining actually starts.

I join in after some time. For kicks. On my backside.

They settle at 18. At least she is happy. Little do I know that while one hemisphere of her brain was bargaining with the man, the other part was getting enticed into actually buying an Osho. So here we go, re cross the road to get to the other side. Thankfully, Oshos come at a fixed price, fifty bucks, and so, no bargaining transpires. Choice of the colour straps of the Oshos is a different matter though. Men may be deemed colour blind, but how would a dark blue on the thin strap of an Osho differ from a black is beyond me. The seller had only black straps, Madam X wanted dark bavy blue. Ten minutes into roaming on that side of the road, we get a blue. She buys two pairs.

Thank God for small mercies.

We cross back. Shopping seems to be done. This is when I the realisation dawns upon me that I am light years away from truth. And from home. Madam X decides that black straps on Osho may not be 'cool' for her, but it should do for her friends back home. So, here we go again. Back to the same guy across the road to search for the best fit black. This part takes barely anytime, what does is the fact that the hawkers who had gone into hiding - from the BMC Van that passed every couple of days - had returned on the other side. Which meant only one thing....

...more shopping, and crossing of roads.

An hour and a half later, at the end of the whole exercise, we had two pair of ear rings, a couple of Oshos and some very important lessons to take home. The first two were taken home by Madam X, the last bit - that came for free - by me.

P.S. Dropped P to the airport this morning and it was some weather in that wee hour of the morning. Almost as cold as a winter day in the North. Almost. And for a change, the city looked beautiful, not a word one normally associates with Mumbai.