Showing posts with label funny day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label funny day. Show all posts

A Crazy Day in USA

# I was fighting with my professor over an issue as usual and the conversation was now coming to an end. Professor X stood there, looking down at me with a stolid face and fiery eyes, and his lip trembled as he finished our talk with his pet line, "Don't argue with me." 



# I was sick after that incident and went to see the doctor the second time to find out they were not so happy to see my again for something as trivial as sore throat. Little did they know that I had spent the entire last night lying awake and coughing. When the old nurse asked me to remove my jacket to check the blood pressure on my bare arm, my t-shirt revealed a forgotten past of my life as it clearly advertised a gaming competition I had attended a while ago. 

"Oh! You used to play video games?" she asked with lifted eyebrows. 

"Yes...I-I used to play a lot..." I said, unsure of what to say, as pride heaved in my chest. But before I could say or think of anything else, she said something which left me speechless. 

"So, in India, a lot of kids have computers?


# I was at the pharmacy shortly after I saw her to collect my medicine. On the counter parallel to mine, waited an attractive young lady. She had engaged her fingers in straightening the locks of her blonde hair while listening to the chemist across the counter. The only snippet of the conversation that I could eavesdrop during my brief stay was a statement that was issued from the chemist's professional tongue,

"So this reduces the risk to 0.5% and this one reduces it further to 0.1%. But I would recommend you to use this and this, and that, every single day at the same time every time, if you want to avoid a baby at all costs.

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Current Book: "The Call of Cthullu and Other Weird Stories" by H.P. Lovecraft (No progress :|)
Current Music: "Intil" by Menomena (Haunting music) (DEDICATED TO ANONY - OH I MISS U) 


3 Idiots in Chinese

I sat glued to my computer screen as a familiar voice poked me from behind,

"Hey, hey...!"

I instinctively minimized the browser window and turned back to find a Chinese friend of mine, smiling as usual. But before I could reply to his "hey", he began,

"Hey, have you see that Indian movie...that...?"

I was like, uh? I wanted to ask him "which?", when he continued,

"That one, the one, with the song, 'gimme some sunshine', yeah, yeah that one, that one!"

He seemed to struggle remembering bits of it, but I got it as soon as he mentioned the song.

"You mean 3 Idiots?" I asked gingerly.

"Yes, yes! That one. So funny, so funny, it was awesome!"

"Oh really? Wow, that makes me proud but wait, was it in English subtitles?"

"No? It was in Chinese subtitles. Too funny, too funny Indian movie!"

I was like, what the heck. Chinese subtitles?

Then he drew the auxiliary that there are probably people out there who know both Indian and Chinese language and went away beaming and appreciating the movie. As the day passed, he often asked me about the actress, the actor and other stuff about the movie. I couldn't help but feel good, cuz it's very rare that good light is shone on my country in this foreign land.

Two days later, he met me at the gym and I had my headphones on, so he asked me,

"Are you listening to that sunshine song? Are you?"

I merely smiled and shook my head, I don't know what he made of it though.

But after a week, today, he did something that convinced me I should blog about this. He came to me, beaming, and said,

"You know what? I watched that movie again last night!"

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Current Book: "The Sound and the Fury" By William Faulkner (Not recommended)
Current Music: "On the floor" by Jennifer Lopez. (I LOVE her)

Vegetarian Woes

Note: It's interesting to observe how my writing style is constantly influenced by the authors I read. From Salinger to Steinbeck. Btw, Grapes of Wrath totally ripped me. Totally.

Now the real post, the thing I was going to talk about:


The huge dinner table is set. The party is on. Knives are flashing, forks are digging, tongues are rolling. There is barbecue. Here's pork. And some beef. Is that a rib? Is that a leg? But what animal is that made of, she asks. It doesn't matter, they say. Just eat it. It's good. No? You don't want it? Try something. Here, try a chicken breast. It's soft. If not, get some turkey. Here, c'mon take it. Put some pepper. Why? It's hard to cut? Use a knife. Cut it, tear it, pull it apart, swallow it down.

I can't, she says. Why? It's barbecue! Have fun! Don' be shy. See, the chicken wings are juicy. And red. Red with blood or topping sauce, she asks. Don' know, they say and bite at it. They forget her after a while. She sits there, and looks about the table with hungry yet restricted eyes.

Jokes are made, memories are shared, bonds are made, but the lamb is torn. Torn with delicacy. Torn with knives, forks, bony hands and neat napkins. The mirth and slaughter goes by and by.

Finally, she slides her wrist across the table, the fingers seem to steal a bread piece that came as a side dish. All the side dishes are sitting untouched on the table. She gathers them. She applies a layer of green salad and butter to make a two bread piece sandwich. And without any knives, forks or napkins, she grapples with the sandwich and takes a bite.

And now the others stare at her, in wonder.

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Current Book: "1984" By George Orwell
Current Music: "Mitwa" from Lagaan

Yellow Mellow Fellow

And the worst has struck now. It could be called the best too.

The kind of things I have made fun of all my life might be the things I will eventually end up doing. The kind of people I have mocked might be exactly the kind I'm going to become. All those bloody academicians, those people with scientific knowledge and all. Those goddamn scientists, PhD's.
Yeah, I might be going for a PhD after this masters thingy. People can't stop laughing when they come to know about what I am gonna do. Most of my classmates/peers won't even believe that I would end up like this.

OF ALL THE PEOPLE, I WOULD END UP LIKE THIS. Unbelievable.
Anything can happen, seriously. When I was young, I used to make fun of all those fellows which were "fellows" of some sort. I never understood why after they did well in academics, they became some kind of "fellow". Bla bla "fellow" and all.

And guess what, a US govt. department is now making me a "fellow". Giving me a fellowship grant and all. Didn't believe it when I saw their email. Had applied for it cuz everyone else was going for it. I was like, "Are you sure, govt. people?" But well, its their choice. They wanna waste their coupla thousand bucks in drain, their goddamn wish. US gotta lotta money anyway.

But the irony, you know? Doesn't make me too happy. What would make me more happy? Well I wish my art paid me. Even if it was like 10 bucks for a story in an average magazine, I would have been jumping all around. I am sitting with a dozen of rejections in my inbox for all the pieces I wrote since January. Nice. It's not like that thousands of bucks from science is bad, it's just that I feel I don't deserve it. I really don't.

I suck at science. Very hard. Prolly suck harder at art. But I don't wanna accept that reality. To be an artist is my only wish. And until I become that, this life is gonna be full of struggle and regret.

Funny govt. people. Funny. I really get a bang out of them.

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Current Book: "The Grapes of Wrath" By John Steinback
Current Music: "Fuckin' Perfect" by Pink

Driving With The Old Lady

 I had planned to take a second try at the driving test this Saturday morning so I figured I'll go to bed early on Friday night. But last night I slept late anyway. I just kept horsing around. Who the hell sleeps early on a Friday night?

So I woke up, got ready and all. Reached the driving license office an hour before it closes in the afternoon only to found that the nice receptionist I met last time was now replaced by some thin old lady. There was a bunch of old ladies in there. In fact, they are all really old. I stood in the queue behind this Chinese guy who was grilling with the receptionist. I overheard some snippets of their conversation:

"...an overspeeding ticket.." the receptionist was saying.
"..yeah...I was..." said the Chinese guy and smiled.
"...this...not funny..you got three tickets in one year" Receptionist looked kinda serious.

The Chinese guy still kept smiling like an idiot and I couldn't hear what he said.

"..banned from driving..for 6 months..if found again..heavy punishment.." finished the receptionist and signaled me to come forward.

That sure as hell was a nice morale booster for me. What a nice start before THE test. She did all the formalities and stuff and I was asked to wait before an officer (another old lady) called my name for the test. We strolled out and I tried to be all nice with her.

Anyway, so we went to my car and did the routine tests of the headlights and shit. C'mon they work all right, all right. I just bought this bitch, it sure works all right. I realized that she was the same officer who took my first test. I asked her if she remembered me. She said she wasn't really sure but she did remember the "Ganesha" statuette. Trust me, I'm a very religious type of person. I keep all these gods and goddesses with me all the time. I even sing a prayer before I leave the house. That's what like my mom would want me to be. And I'm totally that kind of person. No kidding. After few seconds she remembered all about my first test and I thought we were good to go.
People don't believe I'm an animorph. I still don't care. 

I drove nicely and didn't try to scare other nice people on the road. Everything was going fine when on this road, this stupid narrow road, some guy came jogging and hopping along from the front. On the goddamn road, for chrissake. You're supposed to jog and hop on the shoulder or pedestrian tracks. Not on the goddamn road. I wanted to yell at him at that moment only. And also why you wanna jog in -15 degree C? I mean, what the ****? But I calmed myself and did not do anything funny. Except that instead of giving him adequate space to hop around, I kinda steered around close to him, kinda scared him a lil' bit. That sure as hell pissed the old lady. I saw her hand, through the corner of my tricky eye, scribbling notes down her pad.

I was like, "C'mon. No kidding officer. It's his fault." I just didn't say it, though. So we horsed around a bit in the icy and busy streets before the test finished. I asked her while going back,

"So what do you think? Did I pass?" I saw down in her notepad and it had lotta scribbling done in'it.
"Let's go back to the parking lot and talk there. The test ain't finished yet, baby," she said.

BABY? I mean, BABY? All right. Whatever. OKAY So what I wanted to bring your attention to was this word "talk". Whenever, whenever, whenever, ANY CHICK in the goddamn universe, be it old or young, tells you, that she wants to "talk", you're screwed. You're so screwed, baby. Look who's talking anyway.

"We need to talk."

This is the end of everything. You can't reach anywhere after that. Relationships or driving tests, applicable for a wide range. Remember that.

So we returned to the parking lot and I was pretty depressed already. She began to explain from her notepad all the silly and technical mistakes that I did. She gave me a sort of 1 minute lecture on pedestrian safety and how could I have avoided screwing that section of the test up. I even wondered if that jogger was their secret employee or something. The notepad in her hand didn't look so pretty. And so I said,

"Hmm yeah. I screwed up bad. Damn..I need to practice more.."
"Yup. If you race like that, an accident is coming. I'm telling you that for sure, girl."

Thank GOD, she didn't say BABY this time. I hate baby. I hate babies, for that matter. I would have called her a baby if she was a bit younger but I did not want to get deported or something so I stayed low and nice.

"Okay, so thank you for your time, I'll try again some day." I am really nice, though.
"No, you can come inside, you got it."
"What? What didja say?"
"Your score is still fine, only a few reductions, but you passed."

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Current Book: "Lord of The Flies" by William Golding
Current Music: "Yaar Anmulle" by Sharry Mann

Funny Assistant

The semester break draws to an end and a set of new subjects and tasks loom before me. The break can't be discarded as entirely useless as some work was done in most aspects of this life. Most important thing was the creation of a schedule since the first week of this new year, which, if am able to follow from now on DAILY, I think I'll be good. Really good. But yeah, let's see if I really can or not. Because there will be a lot of things that aren't accounted or expected but then, that's life, isn't it?

In short, by the end of year 2011 there should be major changes in the About the author page of this blog and if not, I would have failed.

Hmmm, I really don't have pretty much to say on this weekendly-post so I will devote this post to my love for my lovely Chinese Undergrad Assistant.

Disclaimer: As I might have previously mentioned, the guy is really nice, adorable and definitely more intelligent/smarter than I am (all that GPA crap, you know) but has some funny habits which do crack me up once a while in all this dark and serious research that I have chosen to pursue. 

# One day, on a sunny morning, out of the blue or maybe tired of cleaning, our assistant asks us, "Is there any machine that can automatically clean cube moulds?" We answered, "If there was such a contraption, people would have really opted for civil engineering not computer engineering in these dark times. We, I mean you, got to get your hands dirty, bro."

# "Ah, my back hurts. Work is killing me," We said one day in a casual tone (its our pet dialogue in this youth phase). He says, "You should get some physical exercise perhaps." "O REALLY? WHY DINT ANY1 TELL ME THIS SECRET OF LIFE BEFORE?"

# We are looking around the lab one afternoon because we got to start mixing concrete and we can't find him anywhere. We check all closets, even under the experimentation tables but he's not there. He was supposed to be waiting there for us after preparing the raw materials. Suddenly, our phone breaks the silence of the lab and we flip it to read a SMS (Which BTW COSTS US A LOT EVERY MONTH) sent by our lovely assistant, "Material gets ready. I come to the bathrooms. Be right back soon."

# And some days he's too sweet because we have to lift and transfer 2 huge barrels each of 250 kg of cement to the lab and he kindly understands that we can't do it so he brings an army of Chinese undergrads who get the entire job done while I was away in a seminar. When I asked him why did he bring Xufushu in lab, he might get hurt and liability would come on us, to that he replied, "Xufushu is a very strong man," and we both looked in awe at Xufushu.

# Once he sends us a cute message reminding that our last bus is within 5 minutes from now due to the changed schedule of bus rides. We immediately thanked to God, prayed nice economy for China and ran for the bus.

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Current Book: "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger
Current Music: They See (Desi) Revolution by DNOAX

HNY HNY

HNY HNY.

So on the last day of December, I thought I will act smart and do something different. Following the lines of the old belief that "Whatever you do on the first day of the year, you are likely to repeat that the rest of the year.", I chalked out a shitty idea.

I planned to go straight to bed at 10:00 P.M. that night. No stupid sitting till midnight for the new year and all. And then wake on the first day of the year at 7:00 A.M. and STUDY. Or WRITE. Basically try to initiate the new year by pursuing something noble like Science OR Art. 

But then, I soon realized, "Who I am kidding?" I know who I am. LoL. Sleeping early on New Year's Eve and waking the next day (or any day for that matter) at 7? 

MY ASS. 

So basically I did nothing shitty of this kind and spent this transition pretty normally. 2010 was a great year for me, in fact pivotal in my life, career, etc, etc. I won't bore you with that shit, you know pretty much what happened in 2010 if you wasted your time reading here, so I'll skip that. 

And here's a list of things I actually DID on the first day of January (I don't know if it's a good thing if I will be repeating them throughout the year. You judge.)

- Watched TV at night and learnt how people are crazy at NY Times Square on New Year. Backstreet Boys and Avril looked kinda hot though. 

- Licked Ice Cream after 6 months? lol. 

- Slept for 10 hours. 

- Did NOT go to Office/Lab (Hell yeah, bitch).

- Learned how to drive and scared other nice people on the road and backseat as well. 

- Attended an online video conference (O RLY? About WHAT?) with Darling (to be wife?)

- TRIED to read an English Grammar book and failed. 

- Ate an Octopus in lunch. 

Happy New Year, Honey. (HNY HNY)

P.S: RESOLUTIONS ---> 
1. Get Laid. 
(Resolutions never really come to life, so THAT's OKAY)

How did ya spend yours, dear invisible reader? Any resolutions you might like to share?

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Current Book: "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger
Current Music: "Desert Rain" by Edward Maya

But dat's OKAY.

# Happy Halloween. Happy Diwali. I know I am pretty late. Back at home, at this point of year, I was usually found wailing for crackers and trying to eat the sweets before the 'pooja'. And this time I didn't even realize when Diwali came and went. But that's OKAY.

# Although I did realize the happening of Halloween. Only thing serious in this festival is that the chicks look more hot and much slutty, other than that everything else is funny and childish. And so yeah, it was pretty much fun. I have some pictures for you people but I am sorry they lack a lot of good snapshots which my eyes captured. Sorry, no hot-glamorous stuff for you tonight. But that's OKAY.

Pictures --> They are deep down.

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Da Crowd.



One of the Haunted Houses.




Real Ghost Captured on Night of Halloween ;p

# My undergraduate assistant begins to feel queasy every Friday evening around 6 pm, so I try my best to free him early at least on that day of the week. His GPA is his UG is much greater than what I got in my UG. But dat's OKAY.

# He can do differentiation, integration and other tricks much better than me. But that's OKAY.

# Lately I have been fascinated with what a microwave can do. (Please don't be so judgy and make any inferences that 'what a poor guy, never seen a microwave before in life', although you could be true on that one ;p) So I have been trying to cook and heat almost everything in the microwave. From drinking a glass of water in the morning to the my daily 2 minute meals on which I have been living so far. But dat's OKAY.

So my recent exploit was that I put a plastic packet of cookies in it. I thought I even want my chocolate biscuits to be warm when they kiss my tongue. After 20 seconds I heard some cracking and popping sound and when I tried to peer in, I saw a flame burning inside. LoL.


I put the office microwave on fire, yeehaw.

And then I doused it and ate hot chocolate cookies covered with a thin layer of carcinogenic melted plastic compounds. And the spent the rest of the day wondering how soon will I die. But I didn't die. But dat's OKAY.

Morale: Never let Monkeys use advanced equipment.

Koi jatan ab kaam na aave
Uss kachu sohat naahin
Mora piya mu se bolat naahin
Mora piya mu se bolat naahin

And dats NOT OKAY. 

Freakin' Fridays

I checked the bus timings and my wrist watch one last time before I grabbed my bag and jacket and made a run for the main door. The exit door of the building was a few meters ahead and I had to reach the bus stop within 60 seconds. Because 60 seconds is the time the bus takes to reach the stop closest to my building from the bigger stop where it is scheduled to arrive at 10:11 PM.

I glanced my watch again as I pushed the heavy steel exit door with my tired hands. The minute hand was slightly past 11 minutes and the second hand was moving effortlessly towards the completion of another goddamn minute. The moment I stepped out of the artificially heated structure and stepped on the bare concrete pavement, a cold wind brushed past my ears, reminding me that I had forgotten to employ my jacket's hood. Straggling with my loose bag and flowing jacket, I managed to wear my hood and cover more distance towards the stop.

I saw the bus coming from the other side. It rode the pavement with a considerable effort and engaged itself against me in a 200 meter parallel sprint towards the final destination - the bus stop. I could hear my own cold escalated breath and the crunching sound of fallen leaves beneath my stamping feet. I realized the beginning of fall.

Not much later, about 30 seconds after, I made it to the stop and climbed the bus. The driver nodded and smiled at me in a manner athletes often do after finishing a race. But it wasn't him that caught me off gaurd. It was something else.

It was this strong stench flooded in the bus that caught me and my nostril hair off gaurd. The stench of alcohol. And noises and shrieks too.

Friday, Alcohol, What else? I thought and moved on.

I moved past many shoulders to find a seat at the back side of the bus, where nobody was daring to go and sit and why so, I don't know why. But I came to know the answer of 'why', soon after. The back side was more or less taken by the people who had troubled the olfactory receptors of the sober commuters. Making my way past drunk, shabby haired, half dressed undergrad girls and boys, I found a seat in the corner but before I could find some rest from the sprint I had a minute ago, I found myself talking to a guy who was having a normal Friday.

Guy: Whoa dude, so you been studying?
Me: Uhm, yeah? (I looked at my bag I had now kept in my lap and nodded)
Guy: Wow. You're studying till 10pm on a Friday and am getting drunk. 
Me: Well, no-not really..
Guy:I will be prolly working for you someday. 

Me: huh?

And then he broke the conversation in the same sudden manner he had started it. I took some time to figure the last line he spoke to me and pretended busy in my own thoughts. Then their was a she-friend of this guy, who was talking pictures of herself and her gang and yelling to everyone, "I am 21 and I can drink, how about you?".

I looked at my bag once again and of all those things that I did on this Friday and all those boring things that I will be doing on this Friday night. Then I thought I am 21 too.

But am I living my age? Are we all living our age? Are we living? At all?

The Fruitless Trip


And so, SOMEHOW I have reached US of A. As I type this, I am well settled in my nice apartment at my overly nice city(perhaps next blog post on this topic). Overall the trip was quite fruitless. I mean it had nothing I had expected from it. Nothing at all when compared to my expectations. Of course it had some weird events on the way but no big fruit in the end. Because I was expecting quite paranormal stuff to happen while I was in mid-air. But naah, no aliens came to hijack the plane. The fairies did not appear out of nowhere. The demons and witches did not stop by. And on the top of it all, our plan didn't hit turbulence and we did NOT crash in some unknown island. We did not get lost.

Duh, pretty fruitless.

The boring life continued and nothing extraordinary happened. Nothing much exciting (except at Chicago where my ticket was declared fraud->see below). I have finally reached a new place and have to do studies etc.

But anyway, I do have a few memories to share with you people. I wish I could write down my entire trip here but I can't because I have slightly forgotten it and also you will get bored. So let me just give you a few snippets of the things I observed.


  1. The Random Terrorist Check Interview.
  2. The Germans
  3. The Chinki Brothers
  4. Chicago from Above.
  5. "Your travel agency is fraud sir, your name is not on the flight."

 The Random Terrorist Check Interview.
I reached the sleek new terminal T3 at New Delhi in time and my parents made sure that I was loaded with clothes and accessories to the maximum so that the bags in my hand won't exceed the baggage limits (which already were exceeding, anyway). I looked around and people and chix were dressed so casually and lightly but I was dressed like a snowman ready to conquer Alaska. I hauled up my 3 bags worried that if people nearby were staring at my clothing (which they totally were) and somehow cleared up with the long line of the people taking the flight with me. I was getting my boarding passes done (I needed 3 of them), only 2 were made yet and suddenly their computer flashed or something and they stamped my two passes and asked me to follow some police lady. I was supposed to be perhaps handed over the third boarding pass from Chicago to my final destination but it didn't happen and I guess that's what responsible for #5. Anyway, so the lady explained to me,

Police Lady (PL): Follow me for the Random check interview of passengers.
Me: Huh?
PL: Everyday 5 or 6 people out of the thousands who travel daily are specially interviewed for security purposes. The computer assigns that.
Me: Uh? But (Face full of sweat and tension now)
PL: Oh its nothing, its nothing. The officer will ask just a few simple questions, don't worry, it's routine.

 And that assurance of her made me doubt this random interview even MORE. True story.

 So I was led into this special interrogation room where already a black man was getting interviewed. They were grilling him why he was carrying 60kg excess of baggage. And I guess he was not cool about disclosing the bags to these people and was trying to leave the airport. I was seated in front of a very stern looking bald Indian officer who began questioning me very sternly.

 He asked me a few of questions like,
"Where to?"
"Why US"
"What for in the univ?"
He was pretty cold in all these questions perhaps because all this time he was busy making all kinds of scratches on my Visa and passport. He was checking the authenticity of every part of my passport. Then,
"Which univ you studied before?"
"Bla blah blu"
"Oh that's a reputed university!" (His tone became a lil casual)

 Then he handed me over my passport and said smilingly,
"Btw, your hair looks like a porcupine, ;)."

I exited the interrogation room with my passport in one hand and hand bag in other with an idiot like grin. This hairstyle and the comment was just the beginning of a new era.

The Germans
When my flight landed at Frankfurt, Germany I had an excited and great time to see the airport for 3.5 hours. I very much intended to shop there. I had bought a chocolate like thingy at the large shopping complex in Delhi airport and now it was a Swiss chocolate that took my heart here at Germany. Also I wanted to shop just for the sake of saying "Yes I have shopped around a few continents…" So all this while roaming around the airport I found the Germans to be quite amusing. These German ladies were all hot and stuff. Redheads, you know? So they were like RED HOT. I had this imaginary conversation with a young hot german lady (YHGL).

YHGL: Qaustro quastro pero.
Me: Quastro quastro you're hot.
YHGL: Quastro quastro this is your first time in a developed country isn't it?
Me: Quastro quastro yes, indeeeeeeeeed. So there are others like you?
YHGL: Quastro quastro indeeeeeed.
ME: Quastro quastro, great, I look forward to more imbaness.

 I left her alone then and wandered around to look for other Germans. There was this Gothic-druggist-gay type young man and he was quite hot too. He could have played a Dracula in any upcoming paranormal movie. But Germans were a bit loud. Not much, but yeah a bit. When I tried to talk to the airport staff when I was searching for my terminals, one german lady kinda told me stuff so loud that everyone around was staring at us or me. Lol.


The Chinki Brothers
I found these two guys from Nepal who were on same route Delhi-Frankfurt-Chicago and we 3 kinda stayed together most of the time. One was the Elder Chinki, 4 years elder to me and was going for some ultra noob university. His and mine major were coincidentally same but when I heard his univ's name I almost asked him "How did you get your Visa approved?". But he was all like in Nepal they are allowing easily this time. And then this Younger Chinki was 4 years younger to me and was going to some unknown university for his undergrad. Wierdos both of them.

 But of course, not weirder than me. ;p

Sample, of course. 

One thing I didn't like about Chinki brothesr was that in middle of our conversation they often started using their native language and I was all left like, "Huh wtf are you saying ppl," and then it came to their minds after a few minutes that they should speak in hindi. Their English sucked badly. When I say badly I mean even worse than mine. Now you can judge yourself.

 But the thing I liked about them was their love for Bollywood. They could praise it endlessly. Even on the plane out of the 30 or so top Hollywood movies, they chose to watch the only one available Bollywood movie (some flop one) on their entertainment centers. And on this flight, they were sitting apart and still they watched exactly the same movie. I was like "LoL, how could you watch it.." And they were like, "Oh it was so funny!" and continued their praise for Bollywood. They also told me how expensive the dollar was for them because their rupee was quite weaker to the Indian rupee. If my ticket was for 50k rupees their's was for 75k :O

It happens rarely but that time I felt proud of being an Indian.


Chicago from Above
While aboard I tried to sleep most of the times or read my book. I partially watched the movie "How to train your dragon" and I found it pretty cool. Some of the scenes were so mesmerizing and analogous to the view outside my window (I had window seat yay :D) Like in the movie the kid was exhilarated driving his dragon so I too clapped in excitement when I saw the thin wings of the plan slicing through the huge clouds. It was like wafting over mountains of cotton or perhaps snow. And when we neared Chicago as our plane began to descend, I was able to see those huge sky scrapers of the city. They looked so majestic. I wanted to write the description of the aerial view of the city then and there only. One line that I formed in my mind was something like this,

"The skyscrapers were pieces of tall, cold steel on the face of flat, warm earth."

Then I nudged my Elder Chinki brother and said, "Hey see the view outside! Wow! the buildings!" He gave the most dispassionate and not-interested brief glance and resumed his preparation for the landing. I was all like perhaps he too being a civil engineer might like the view outside and understand my feelings for the structures. I was all crazy on seeing those huge structures. But this guy clearly wasn't. He had a lot of issues actually.

Like the entire time, he wore his seat belts. LOL. And when the plane landed or took off he used to hold the side handles of his seat and sit up straight. I was like, "C'mon, we won't die so soon."


"Your travel agency is fraud sir, your name is not on the flight."
Till I reached Chicago the trip was quite awesome and I had a nice time making fun of everything and everyone around me. But after seeing me act like a smartass for a long time, the God guy gave my life a little twist. Yeah a LITTLE twist. I had around 3 hours at Chicago airport to catch my last connecting flight out of which more than 1 hour was wasted at the Customs line where I nearly escaped nabbing by a lady and her smelling doggy. The smelling small doggy was moving around the line and sniffing everyone's bags. He passed mine and I got a sigh of relief but the Elder chinki guy's bag made him stop wagging his tail so there were some problems. I don't know what happened later with his cuz at this point, our paths had diverged.

Then I checked in my bags for the next flight and when I reached the counter to Check in MYSELF, here's how the convo between me and a rude bald American guy went:
Guy: Which flight you are on? (Scanning my passport)
Me: The UA@#$ at bla bla to bla bla..
Guy: Nope, you are'not.
Me: Huh? But my e-ticket has #$%@$#@$ $ @#$
Guy: I am looking at the ticket in the computer and you have no such booking sir.
Me: I booked through MAKEMYTRIP guys and how it is possible??
Guy: Your travel agency is fraud sir, your name is not on the flight. Sorry you need to redo the whole thing and go to terminal 1.

He returned my passport and disappeared. At that very moment, all the fun and excitement vanished in thin air. I was like, "Ohkay, now you're getting to me, USA" So it was like, my baggage was already sent to the next flight BUT I wasn't. So I ran here and there and finally found a special counter where people could address their problems. A long queue was there and I somehow got my boarding pass made and entered the flight just 5 mins before they closed gates. I think it was probably because of the event that happened at the Delhi airport.

All sweaty and tired and full of jet lag and thirsty as I finally sat on the domestic plane, I grabbed what they offered me shortly afterward. I opted for some can of Apple and Cranberry juice with an empty glass full of crushed ice. It was refreshing. After a few minutes I noticed it had "Cocktail" written all over it. I thought I had tasted alcohol kinda thingy. So I asked the American sitting next to me,

"This isn't beer right?"

He laughed at me and said that it was just juice.


I was like, "Ohkay, anyway I have taken too much stuff upon myself today. So whatever."



    Why Religious Gurus are essentially Marketing Geniuses? My Encounters with one of a kind…

    So as I write this on a shaky keypad of my cute Dell mini-laptop, I am returning back to my beloved village from a short journey to another village in our rickety and ‘only four wheeler’ which could be considered as a car. I love to write while travelling. Besides I am eager to share and write down whatever stuff happened with me this fine morning.

    Just an example what I mean by Indian Saints
    So as I was counting my final days in my beloved country while penning down my expectations for the new land that I am going to see, my parents, my mother essentially, began all this new drama of seeing all my relatives for the last time (I am not even sure if I remember the names of all those people I meet which are somehow related to me by blood) and seeing and worshipping all our ancestral religious gurus or babas or monks or saints or whatever you call them man. They are all same to me.

    So it all began yesterday morning when my dear mommy was all,

    Hey, you have only few days left here, and-
    Yeah, I know. Tell me something new ;p,” I cut her in hoping she would forget to complete her sentence.
    Shut up, you’re being too rude these days. And I was saying, that in the last few days, you should go and meet all our Guru’s and saints which our ancestors have been worshipping since decades or something and bla bla bla (This is where I lost track of what she was saying as I dug deeper into my favorite comic strip, Garfield, in the newspaper – I read newspaper only for those comic strips, y’all) and bla bla, so tomorrow morning at 6 A.M. we are leaving for this this village where this big big saint has come and we must pay a visit and seek blessing for your safe life ahead in US and so that you also don’t get spoiled by their modern culture etc and you should be thankful that you got VISA so easily by their grace…
    Huh? At 6? What? Why? But? So early? Saint? How? I don’t wanna go. Please keep me out this stuff,” I tried to make a sad face but failed.

    Then we kinda argued for a minute or two cuz that’s the max you can argue with mothers after which they use their ace cards and you are just left with no option but to agree. So she threw down the following two cards on the table and I was as usual “Ah-k-lets-go-whatever-wherever-mom

    Card #1: She won’t pack my travel bags (OmG!)
    Card #2: She will brand me as an unfaithful daughter who has left her home and family values etc etc permanently. (Duh)

    I really didn’t care about Card #2 but man, Card #1 was sortof killer and I had to agree. I don’t know shit about packing or shopping or cooking so I always leave it to the elder ladies. Elder Ladies are good at these things. And that could be a weakness. Or a strength. Depends on how you look at it.

    So anyway, next day early morning I am forced out of bed quite early while my mom is all ready and neat and eager to go. Then I am forced to bath too. And all other daily chores, like combing my hair and breakfast n stuff. Somehow, I am ready to leave on time. Even though our driver was a tad late but mom had made sure that we were on time. When we sat in the car and began the eventful journey, a wave of sour saliva swept across my tongue.

    I swallowed. I smiled.
    Forgot to brush. Nice.

    Then, nothing much happened on the 2 hour journey by road to another village where the saints were supposed to be having a stay at their own imba fortress kinda thing. Except the fact that the entire journey I spent sleeping and my pious and anxious mother spent the two hours making sure that the roads were all right, other vehicles on the road were all right and that our car was all right, and everything in general around her was all righty-right. I often tell her on such occasions,

    Dear mommy, leave this job to the driver. You should just relax at the back seat with your eyes closed.”
    But she’s all, “No! Drivers etc know nothing! We ourselves have to take care of everything and all.”
    But only THE driver can access the accelerator or break, mom
    But uhm? Still! Duh, shut up,” as she raises her hand and kinda scares me by her false slap action.

    So we reach this place, (I will try not to go into facts and names, after all I don’t want an entire community, a rather big one, on my ass for this post) and it looks serene and quite cool but heavily guarded with men. Just like a fortress. Only difference that soldiers’ weapons here were smiles and bows and greetings which they showered upon any stranger who might dare enter their fortress. And so they fired on us all those sweet weapons they had, especially after they came to know that we had come from a big village which is kinda quite famous in my state. You feel like a celebrity when you come from the biggest village of your state. You can spam everywhere you go and say, “I come from THERE” And they are like “woaah…”

    Sorry for all you people who were born in towns and cities and metros, maybe better luck next life.

    Example of Namaste. Also, your weekly dose of hot chix-pix.
    We move upstairs to find the holy saint missing from his humble throne and a lot of other devotees like us gathered and bent down around his throne. We sit there for a while, (my mom with hands clapped together to form a Namaste – a gesture of prayer, I holding the book I am reading these days – ‘Every Second Counts’ by Lance Armstrong) but when my mom snatches away my reading book and asks me to imitate her worshiping position, I kinda get pissed and eventually restless. So after a minute or more of the waiting for the Saint who hasn’t yet appeared, I escape the hall by giving an excuse that I urgently need to pee and I actually go downstairs to explore out the fortress.

    As I was happily skipping down the narrow stairs, I saw a large man all dressed in white with a long, long beard wearing maalas around his neck coming up. He was coming up in my going down lane/direction of the stairs and I was half way down the stairs while he had just landed the first starting step and considering my double speed, technically, technically, he should have shifted to the side to save the collision from occurring. But he didn’t as if he was like the king of this fortress and so we stood face to face with he staring right into my eyes as he said in a tone more cold than curious,

    Where are you from?” he asked, recognizing that I was new here.
    Um? Bhathinda,” I blurted out my village’s name but not with the kind of pride I usually do.
    What’s your name?
    Tanya Singhal,” I answered after a few seconds of pause as a crooked smile spread upon my face.
    huh? Uh-oh, huh?” he grumbled and felt confused and shifted away from the stairs to make way for me and left for the hall upstairs.

    Sample pic of bread pakoras.
    I explored out the fortress a bit and found it kinda cool and calm place to hang out. And then finally found the open kitchen where they actually gave FREE FOOD to all those who came there and so I joined the queue with an empty plate in my hand. There weren’t plenty of options to choose from but there were some. So considering the fact that my mom would be waiting for me upstairs with perhaps a false cane in her hand, I quickly placed some Bread Pakoras with a nice Chutney(Sauce) in my plate and began to munch and gobble it down. I sipped down a hot tea before I left for the hall upstairs.

    C’mon, don’t you look at me like that, I was hungry. Besides, it was free.

    But as I was just putting down my plate before exiting the kitchen, my mother had come all looking for me and she was all like, “Stupid, you are sitting here eating and up there Mr. Saint has come and he’s looking for you and all how careless you are and all and bla bla” So before I could crack up some excuse she takes me up by hand and donates a hundred rupee note ($2 essentially) to the donation box at the exit of the kitchen. Perhaps this was her gratitude towards the nice kitchen people whose services her daughter had enjoyed just now. And silly me, I was considering it as free food all the time. I was about to ask her, “Since we had now kinda paid for it, could I have lil more?” but then I preferred to keep my mouth shut cuz my mother was really looking angry at that moment.

    And SO, I finally get to see the Saint sitting on his throne with a dozen or so people bent down before his feet. I realized that this Saint was actually that stairs guy I met before while going down. Now I understood that awkward bump in the middle of flight of stairs. He was perhaps expecting me to fall in his feet in those stairs and give him the way by going all the way back upstairs etc. And since I didn’t, he gave me those weird looks. But then I thought, what the heck, even if I knew it was THE Saint guy in the stairs, I would have acted the same anyway. True story.

    So as the entire crowd there were on the knees with their hands in the Namaste formation, I stood straight smiling at the Saint, my hands stuffed loosely in the side pockets of my shorts (My mom always wants me to wear pants whenever we have to go out but I just prefer shorts and that’s another point of quarrel but then that’s totally another story).

    (I think I am going too much slow, I will now fast forward to the part where the post should justify its title). Little Background: This Saint is kinda our family saint and so knows all the children and family members by NAME. He also knows me and has met me 3-4 years before and still remembers my real name, it’s just I who have forgotten him or his name. 

    RULE No.1 for Marketing: Always KNOW your clients. If you can CONNECT with the name and family of your customers, your business CAN run.

    So after he made me sit down close to him and finally after an awkward minute of silence (in which I was supposed to bow down and rub my forehead in his feet just like others), he placed his hand on my head and kinda forced it down so it appeared to his followers that I was bowing down. I totally wasn’t, y’all. And here’s an excerpt of the convo that followed,

    I have tried to summon you here a lot of times but you never came, huh?”, he said and named all those religious classmates and cousins and peers who had in the past 3-4 years had at times informed me every six months or so that Mr.Saint is currently in this this village and he was very much inclined to see me. But of course, I usually ignored them and spent my life without religion or spirituality.

    I merely smiled and kept looking back at him while he told me that I should follow that that norms of this this particular region. And that I should stay away from bad company or non-veg etc in US. In between my mom would add a reply on my behalf saying, “Yes, yes she is a very good girl. She does and will continue to follow all these norms,” She was quite worried that the Saint might just impose a curse on her daughter for her arrogance or perhaps summon a fireball from his staff to punish her careless daughter.

    Then he asked me for my full name and gave a weird look when I told him my real name. And he was all like, that I should change my surname to the surname specified by the norms of THE religion. And I was like, “Yeah sure.” (I should now cancel my flights, submit my passport for renewing my surname, wait for a few months to get it done, defer my admission for next year and then I will be good bcuz I'll be following the surname norms) I assured him again, “Yeah sure.”

    Rule No.2 for Marketing: EXPAND your business. Ask your very clients to carry your company’s NAME ahead. It works.

    Then he took me to a secret room away from all the crowd as the people were left behind whispering, “Oh-oh this girl is going to amreeka-shamreeka, Guru ji will be giving him special power or wish." There he pulled me awkwardly closer to his half naked body and began to place in my hands a series of sacred items whose descriptions he gave one by one,

    Sacred Maala
    These are very sacred and very costly maalas/chains which you should wear around your neck all the time and chant this mantra 51 times on each bead/crystal of it before going to bed. Then these are very important cards on which our sacred sayings are written, you should paste them everywhere in your new home in US. And try to distribute these to your friends so that other lost souls too can follow the path of god and righteousness. And bla bla (as usual here I lost track of what he was saying, as I was marveling at the huge pillars and pedestals of the fortress Saint lived in) and bla bla, keep these cards safe, don’t loose them. Only hand them out to other worthy people like you.”

    Rule No.3 for Marketing: Hand out your Visiting CARDS as if they are not just pieces of paper but so sacred and important that the fellow holding them in their hand should feel immensely LUCKY.

    Pure marketing I call it. In the name of religion and spirituality, of course. What do you say?

    Visa Approved BUT with Wardrobe Malfunction

    Yay!

    Finally my Visa to US of A has been approved (somehow) by a wierdo visa officer. After many months I felt that "true happiness" kinda stuff. It was a fun filled ride of my two day trip to American Embassy, New Delhi which I am so eager to share with you people that I have been punching keys the moment I reached home. A have a bunch of snippets and memories to share and so they are organized as per your convenience.

    And yes, a wardrobe malfunction is coming up too down the post, you gotta get reading ;)

    A Vote of Thanks.
    But yes, some gratitude first! Special thanks to supporting friends like Vatsan and Deorah (who actually a day before the interview, took an half hour long mock interview to charge me up. The kind of questions he posed entirely raped me but sort of prepared me for the worst. I unconditionally recommend him for a job of a Visa Officer in the immigrant section especially. America will be happier. LoL)

    Also thanks for the kind wishes of the people who commented on my previous post. Holly (An Amazing Blogger), Snehal and Palak, you people really rock for being so regular here!

    To my family, who believed in me.

    And yes thanks to those who came there, felt my pain and left without their footprints. I welcome them again :)

    The City of New Delhi
    Leaving my village (Bhatinda) behind for two days was a relief. Who doesn't prefer beautiful structures looming above you and hot chicks lurking around you? Although Delhi has it's own problems of pollution and population. But the area we visited and took the hotel room in was quite nice to hang around. The place having all the embassies is quite posh and filled with all sorts of foreigners. The streets are bundled with sleek hotels and enticing food joints. I had a hell lot of street and chat food a day before my Interview. I just did not want to stay idle, so kept myself busy till the final hour. Roamed the streets, got some few things done related to the documentation n stuff, checked out the chicks (which were definitely better than what I see these days @ village).

    It's like that in advanced n modern cities, no matter what, chicks know how to carry themselves out. They know what to hide and what to accentuate. So it kinda works ;) But sorry, I digress. This post must be about my Interview.

    Ill-Will ho gaya...
    I returned to my room at night and discovered the alternating patterns of hot and cold stuff had made my throat go bad. I was quite worried that the condition will worsen by the next day. So I took some throat healing toffees, vicks etc (they did not help much). Next morning I woke up and decided to do the hot water gargles. Turned out that the first gargle made me vomit. And quite a junky stuff landed before my washbasin which I was expecting anyway. I could make out the contents of it, not completely though.

    So all in all, a nice start for the biggest interview of my life (till date). The appointment was at 0915 hours and I checked out at around 8 in hurry and somehow reached on time.

    Da Interview
    Now this is my favorite part...I had prepared the documentation and all for like a month just for this day. Read around 300-400 interviews on the Internet to prepare myself for this. But my interview...it was nothing like I had ever seen before (hardly..)

    The Delhi embassy was quite organized and I was rather amazed by the professionalism in the way they were carrying out their routine work. Around me were a lot of non-immigrant people, many of them sweating hard. Rejects and refusals were raining hard. I tried myself to engage in arranging my docs while I waited for my Token number to be called.

    I was assigned to this 25-30 year old, male VO(Visa Officer) with short hair and a stone cold face. He was hammering a Sikh(=Sardarji) guy before me pretty hard. What I heard is this-->

    VO: Why this Univ---why you select this---why not study in India-----
    Sikh Guy: I-i-i-i-t mmmmmmmatches-s-ss mmmmy prrrrofile. (He was shaking so bad that he couldn't even speak properly. The applicant appeared so afraid that he took a full minute to speak this line "It matches my profile" and what a lame answer.)
    VO; I am rejecting your Visa. Thump. (He stamped reject on his passport and returned it to him)

    Next was my turn. I was almost sure that this arrogant VO guy can screw the hell outta me. I approached cautiously. But believe me, this guy amazed me. That's how it went-->

    VO: (Looking at his computer screen continuously and typing something, as I approached he ignored me completely)
    DK: Good Morning officer (Said in a normal tone, after waiting for 10 seconds)
    VO: (Gave no reply, did not even look at me, just placed his hand in the sliding place of the counter, pointing towards my stapled passport. I forwarded my passport and i20)
    VO: So how many universities you applied to? (that was a wierd question to be the first one),
    DK:  Six universities. I applied to X, Clemson univ, ASU, UFL, U of Cincinnati-(Cuts me here)
    VO: Your Visa has been issued. It will be couriered to you. 


    I was like. WTF? One question? No documents asked? No GRE, TOEFL? NO Degree %? NO Finance? I mean I was like, "Cmon man atleast see something, lol, at least see my GRE man..lol".

    I was so  DUMBSTRUCK, that I actually stood there with a blank face staring at him, not believing his words. His arrogant and stoned face still made me feel like it was a reject. He had to get rid of me from his eyes sight by yelling "NEXT" and then I only remember being shoved out of the line by a fat candidate behind me...

    And that was it...lol.

    Visa Interview, big hype but all bullshit. I think the reasons behind this "shortest interview" are that
    1. He was quite pissed off that Sikh guy before me. (Thanks Sikhs, really.)
    2. He had already seen in my i20 the scholarship etc and that's why din't worry about finance and all.

    ANYWAY, IT WAS DAMN COOL. I never expected MY VI would be SO AWESOME ;) 

    The Wardrobe Malfunction
    And here it is, your best part buddy. The one you have been waiting for so long or maybe simply scrolled down to read it first ;) It's okay, I understand. ;p

    So it's weird you know, at the embassy there were a few chicks that weren't really dressed well. I mean too casual or maybe too slutty. High pointed heels with Low deep neck tops. I mean, c'mon. You are here for a professional interview and not some. . .All the time I was thinking about THEM that what if they accidentally revealed too much to the VO and he gets angry and denies you visa?

    But fate is evil. Turns out it was ME who suffered from a wardrobe malfunction all along.

    Only thing is I realized it a little too late. I came out of the embassy all smiling and happy, grinning at the crowd of the anxious parents waiting outside, looking for my dad. Some of them were grinning back at me (lol). I found my dad and he was quite happy on hearing the news. He expressed his worries that since  morning he was a little negative about the lousy clothes I had worn for this day and was thus afraid that they might reject me on the basis of my casualty with regards clothing.

    He again reviewed me from top to bottom and said, "You look awful. Look everyone is dressed in formal. And you were so casual. But I guess that doesn't matter. You GOT IT."

    "Yeah dad, I got it. The sikh guy before me who got rejected was in full formals, white shirt, black trousers, nicely fitted turban and all..."

    "Hey but wait, what omg. Your trouser's zipper is open. lol" with that he slapped his palm on his forehead and I felt weird lol. And I thought, all this time...lol...

    I forget to fly it up I guess before leaving the hotel where I pee'ed the last in hurry. And since those 2-3 hours, I was roaming like this. .In the entire embassy, in my interview, I was a moving wardrobe malfunction. God, lol.

    But anyway not much harm done, no revelation of any kind of course, my loose shirt was quite low, so I guess that covered the place for most of the time. :D

    Funny day.

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