The saga of the whining victor

Antakshari and I are old buddies. I chase it, it chases me; I win it and sometimes if I don’t, it wins me. Where-ever I go, I invariably end up participating in it and hence the chase continues.
So it did, even here in Hyderabad.


On the 30th of Jan ’10, after a whole drama, I managed to make a random team of three and won, yea, came 2nd without doing too much effort and had a gala time. BUT, I had no idea that the last bit of my association with this contest would be the most frustrating one, requiring maximum amount of patience from my side; the part where I collect my prize.

First, they don’t give the prize-money / vouchers on the prescribed day because it is supposed to be centralized. So, hang on, it will come to you. We play safe, ask one of the organizers to collect and then pass it on to us. What I do-not know is that he is an ass who will continuously call me in the middle of a test [after telling him repeatedly that I’m busy till 5pm]. Whatever happened to ‘dropping a text message?!’ Flustered, I decide to deal with the other guy, choose to call him up and explain. Well, he turns out to be the sane choice; let’s call him A. By this time, it is 1st Feb. ’10. A gave me a date after inquiry, 7th Feb, Sunday, official prize distribution day.
Turns out it wasn’t.


I’m sure they had their reasons, but the postponing continued for quite some-time. One of these days, he managed to lay his hands on the cheque and the vouchers, but failed to pass them on to me. Then A and I played I’m busy-You are busy for another couple of weeks, had another blood-boiling experience with the 1st organizer guy and finally, on one of the worst days of my life, 8th March, I collected the glorious prize. Hang on, doesn’t end here.

First of all, the vouchers were bogus. I have an awesome hair-style, and they give me 200/- discount at Habib’s. I don’t wear jewellery, they give me 1000 bucks off, If I shop for 12,000 bucks. Are you kidding me?! There is more to it…
The cheque was an account payee, which I obviously knew would go in my account that might be in any bank under the sky; BUT while giving the cheque to me, A asked me to go to this prescribed bank’s distal branch and en-cash the money. Blind me didn’t read the cheque and took his word for it.

After this, begins the most annoying part. I am running around all day in the campus with the cheque in my wallet and when I get free in the evenings at 5, the bank is shut already! On the 13th Mar, it is second Saturday, the bank won’t even open. Unbelievable frustration

FINALLY, today, 2 days prior to my super-huge ultra-important presentation, I take time out to go all the way to Madhapur in this scorching heat, only to get a joke made out of me. The banker asked me to go back to my campus branch of SBI and deposit the cheque in my account and then, withdraw the money from my regular everyday atm. I insist on withdrawal, but as I’m not his customer, he is free to not entertain me.


Current status is that my cheque is dropped in the box. It will en-cash after 3 working days and then I get the money. If I was in US now, I would be filing defamation against the fest-organizers for being the sole reason behind absolute nuisance, tanning me 2 shades down, causing deep inconvenience and inefficient transfer of deserved currency. But I’m in India, and this happens every day here.

It gets on my nerves more because back home in Bombay, every time we had a fest, the winners got their prizes less than ½ an hour after they won, and here, the cheque was dated 22nd Feb. I still don’t have the money, but I’m ready to ignore all the drama that followed.

You might wonder what were the 2 of my group mates [one of them a guy] doing all this while. Nothing. I couldn’t face them because it was like I owed them money and yet, I didn’t! Of the Rs 500/- of my share, I have already blown about Rs 250/- in making phone calls, travelling, eating ice-creams to turn down frustration and the likes. Another grand would be spent in PARTYYY and treat-treat-treat chants. Grr.


A few good things that came out of the whole thing are that I won against someone I really wanted to show the ground, made another decent friend in Hyderabad and understood the value of a not-so-petty 500 rupee note.

Take home messages.

1. If you organize a fest, it is just not about the 3 days, it is about everything that happens before and after it. Act responsible.

2. If you have an enemy, ask them to participate in Felicity, organized by IIIT Hyd; and make absolutely sure that they win.

Blah.

This love-hate thing..

When they like you, you don't like them;
when they don't, you lurrvveee them.
When you talk to them, you are on cloud nine,
when you don't, probably they are on cloud seventeen :D

And then all this while,
there is this person
who stares at you while you work in the library,
dreams of you, day and night,
tries a lot to talk to you,
smiles a lot while talking to you.


And you keep hoping to talk to the person who doesn't care what you want to talk about, making several blows to the feelings of the one who does care.

This funny thing about liking someone, you sometimes forget that you need to be liked back.


You settle for whatever comes along. You want to eat a fruit, who cares if it is lemon or strawberry? Humour yourself that all is going to end well; but knowing very well deep down that this ain't going nowhere. Hurting someone elses feelings because this one particular person isn't paying enought attention to you.

This funny thing about loving someone and they not loving you back, someone ends up getting hurt for no fault.


Then, there are your friends. They sympathise with your situation, but 'HAVE GOTTA TELL YOU SOMETHING NOW!' They, their respective relationships and their funny tales. You have to go like, 'You 've gotta be kidding me!!' or 'Awww, I'm so happy for you :)'; when deep down telling yourself, 'Get out of this room before you explode!'

This funny thing about wanting to be friends with only those people who have identical relationship status as you.


Just when the sea in your heart calmed down, why does the tornado strike?
When you were busy playing neutral, why do all the positives and negatives in you start attracting and repulsing with each other?
This sudden rush of feelings for this one person, all goes well and then suddenly,
*Boom*

The bubble bursts!


WHY?

Different cities, different ways..

I always heard that India is 'diverse'; Now I finally know what that means..

Moved from,

to


It took me about more than a month to get used to the ways of the new city. Considering the fact that both the cities have very different history, this was expected. What makes it complicated is that the concepts that are just normal here are considered hilarious there and ways of life there are plain weird here. 'I' meanwhile am stuck between the places and trying to hunt for a midway.

Like, if you named a part of the city as 'High-tech city' in mumbai, people would either die laughing or simply change the name; and the same thing in Hyderabad is, 'cool' :-| I'm yet to know what is so high-tech about the high-tech city, the rocks are pretty authentic though..

The kinds of clothes I wear were never a matter of concern for me back home. Here, if i leave the room wearing shorts, the amount of staring is unbelievable! I try and wear 'full' clothes and even a scarf [for the sun] to just complete the burkha effect! My normal hairstyles are now 'fancy' and my sense of style is 'fashionable'. I get compliments thrown at all the time and more than making me happy, it ends up making me uncomfortable. Weird, very weird.

Oh, another thing..
If I come across a random guy in Mumbai, like the auto-walah / shopkeeper types, and call him 'bhaiya' it is supposedto be very offensive! I've called such people as 'uncle' all my life; and now if I call them uncle, I get a sly smile quipped with "Main aapko uncle lagta kya madam?" :-| Yeah, thats Hyderabadi hindi for you :-|

The local trains are replaced by MMTS, which suck
The Vada Pav is replaced by Dal wada;
The Cutting chai became 'Special tea';
Running to catch train has become cycling to class;
Super heavy showers shrunk into occasional drizzles;
DPs Restaurant has become Gopal shop;
Mom-made food is now putrid mess food;
Shivaji Park beach is now Peacock lake side;
The Biggest party ever called 'college' is over..
and campus life just happened!

Am I not happy?
No. There is not much to be unhappy about. The University is the best, facilities are bestest ever, people are kinda decent, my faculty is super-sexy and I've decent number of friends..

Then why am I whining?
I have my first internal exam this week :'(

P.S. Bharath is the only person in the university whom I knew before I came here; and as always, its FUN to meet blog-mates! :D

Eerie Hostel Tendencies :P

Hostel life exposes us to whatever other people’s good/bad/ugly habits are and well, even you can’t actually hide yours’. Even if you become all isolated and tight-lipped, there is no escaping intrusion on your privacy :D

So, so.. having faced about 3 weeks of life in girl’s hostel, having seen quite a bit [:D], having had quite some words; an enlightened Shatabdi shall have her say..
*clears throat*
A girl’s hostel is the most uncivilized place on the planet.

Don’t believe me? Visit any! Okay, guys have to take my word for it :D


I shall just mention what all I saw than leaving it on your imagination.
[Stop thinking about it, girls do NOT make out in the corridors of my hostel!]

So, back to what all I saw with respect to clothing, hmm..
Girl walking around without major clothing, yes
Girl walking into the washrooms, holding her towel, yes
Towel slipping off, oh yes :-|
Girl having bucket full of clothes and none on her body, yes
Girl changing in the corridor, yes :-|
Girl wearing just a translucent top and running in the corridor, yes
Did I want to see any of it? Hell no!
So you get the hang of it, plain disgusting.

I was going around the rooms of my hostel for a survey and for some reason girls seem to run to change clothes just after I knocked the door! Not once, not twice but more than ten times! What were they doing all the while, no, I didn't need to ask :-|

Now that I’ve started talking about disgusting things, lets go one step lower..

Bathroom Quirks :D
Now, we have a Bathrooms with have one side of baths and the other of WC with the central part lined up with wash basins and one clothes-washing enclosure. Once I had the whole of my wardrobe for wash and also the bedsheets and curtains; so, I just decided to get them washed than die. Also, I’m an absolute laundry fanatic and there is only a particular way my clothes are to be washed, starched etc, thus I had to supervise the woman. This meant a good one hour in the washroom with no good work to do.

Quick question, what should people ideally take along with them to the loos?
Soap, mug, toilet paper [if necessary] and errmm towel?
I’ve seen people emerging out with all kinds of things..
Bucket, Books, Music player, Newspaper, Glasses, Make-up kit, Toothbrush + Paste, Hair oil + comb, Mirror, Eye-lens box + solution, washed socks + washing brush, A soiled plate + cutlery set!
What is it? Don’t people have 2 minutes to spare for essential activities! Or they have the skill of time-saving that I don’t possess! Why have you gotto eat while taking a dump?! Or is it some simultaneous input-output mechanism that one needs to master!
I can’t even eat while people are talking about it, how do these girls manage to eat while doing it! How?

I’m just gonna stop typing or I’ll get nauseous!

Until next weekend, BYE!

The Sambhar Rice and the Coconut chutney

Well, so I am in South India. Not the first time, but definitely the first time for more than a week and with another year and a half lined up. So this is it, Welcome to Hyderabad!

With my Bengali lineage and Maharashtrian upbringing, I have eaten quite an assortment of food. So much variety that a restaurant menu would not suffice; But since the last 10 days, I have had almost all meals of Sambhar-rice! Bland food, so bland that I carry chaat masala with me to eat; And oh no no, this is not the worst part, these local girls went and complained that the food is ‘spicy’ and what I expect next is boiled vegetables!!

Food the way I’ve never had before
Vegetables that I don’t identify
Tamarind in everything
Cutlery = absent
Rice rice everywhere
Water straight from the oceans
No ‘daal’ in the daal
No tea, they serve morning sugar syrup
LONG queue for bath and longer for breakfast
Cycling across the 2300 acres called ‘campus’
No cellular network in the jungles

I asked for college life, not Jail life!


Ahem. So well, you get the hang of it, don’t you?

The TV channel doesn’t change. If you want to change, you use your stick / pen / clip, because there is no knob you see.. So it plays telegu stuff and I don’t even cross that corridor.

My room-mate’s possibly the best I could ever have! She is from Pune, so it’s like having someone from back-home live with me :-) Plus we like a lot of common things and don’t like a lot of other common things; in short, great! *thumbs up*
Very few guys from Mumbai; I made some decent amount of friends and we set off exploring the university every now and then :-) So, life doesn’t actually suck :P

Hyderabad is a funny place. They have cheesy parts of the city called Cyberabad, Telecom-nagar, hi-tech city n all; which by my view is funny :D The language is funny too. I’m not talking about telegu, any south Indian language is the same for me; here, I talk about the hyderabadi hindi :-| Oh, you’ve gotta hear it to know what I’m talking about.

I came alone to the city :-) I mostly travel alone and well, I kinda settled by myself too; so that’s prolly good.. The cycling is settled, even the room with my personal touches :-)

This is different from the place I grew up in
Very different
Maybe that means that life has a lot in store for me here
I don’t know, time will tell..

My Profs have a very sexy profile though. They are all visiting faculty in BIG schools like IISc, BARC, TIFR, MIT, some German and UK schools.. Even seniors have a great set up, so well, I have that much pressure on me to perform well..

I will write often now. I can’t believe that I didn’t write on my birthday. I had a nice one, but it was kinda sad coz I left for Hyd the next day. It is ok, the month-long birthday celebrations had gotta stop someday.. So, 20th year of life it is :-)


Oh, about the coconut chutney..

I dunno why but these south Indians love that one man!
It is served with everything! Idli, rice, puri, pakoda, samosa, upma, OKAY!
But they served it with aloo ka paratha! Beat that now..
Goodbye to good food..
*sigh*