Ek shaam mastaani

When Manish called to ask me how big an RD fan I am, I didn't really know how to respond. Of course, I really love Panchamda's songs and listening to them makes my day almost on all occasions and acts as the best pick-me-up I have ever had the fortune of receiving. Having said that, I am not really up there when it comes to distinguishing between the Thumri and the Khamaj...or for that matter, between a C sharp and a C major. But then again, since when did listening to RD start requiring technical knowledge of music...I have always believed that he is one of those composers who knew the pulse of not just his contemporary audience but also of those to follow. RD Burman is a rare artist, one whose creations have actually become more popular now as compared to what they were, when they were actually conceptualized.

As all these things went through my mind and I told Manish that "of course I am a big fan", Manish started to open his cards. He asked me if I love RD's songs enough to make a day-trip to Pune (about 200 kms from Mumbai) to listen to a concert organized by a relatively small group called Humraahi (with no big names in either the music or the singing). The idea honestly, was not totally mouth-watering. But interesting it was, what with the journey to Pune passing through the Mumbai-Pune expressway, one of the best roads in the country and the occasion of RD's death anniversary expected to bring the best out of the musicians and singers who had come out to pay their tributes to the legend, big name or not. The Western Ghats dotting the expressway combined with the slight nip in the air during evenings promised a good long drive, if not anything else. Although I only had Manish for company (not the ideal company for long drives, no doubt) but he is fun and does not mind my occasionally prolonged silences or randomly weird outbursts.

Leaving office early was not too much of a problem since I have not really been pressed with work so much that there is no time to spare. There actually is, and I thought of making good use of it. Given Manish's info about the concert starting around 7:30 in the evening, we left Mumbai at around 3:30 and making our way across the Western Ghats turned out to be a breeze as expected. The City managed to touch 160 kmph (shaky in sports mode, but surprisingly stable in the normal automatic mode) and was actually being driven at or around 140 kmph for a reasonably long stretch. The drive was simply awesome and the winding roads with the awe-inspiring tunnels made both going and coming back alone worth the entire trip.

This was not the end of it though. There was much more to come which would make this trip the perfect start to the new year. For starters, a trip to Pune is but incomplete, if it does not include a trip to Kayani bakery, the place made famous on account of its Shrewsbury biscuits and Mawa cakes. To add to this, Manish knew a place where he used to have his breakfasts along with filter coffee during his Pune StanC days. Filter coffee is one of my weaknesses and soon enough, we were at Niranjan Cafe on FC Road, followed by Kayani on Bank Street. With the bakery sufficiently raided, we were on our way to Yashwantrao Chavan Natya grah in Kotrud, the venue for the concert.

There was hardly anyone at the venue with no face behind even the ticket counter. The parking was empty (even though they were charging a ridiculous 4 Rs for the parking) and there did not seem to be anyone around. A brief enquiry from the parking guy told us that the concert was slated to start at 9:30 and despite Manish's repeated claims that the concert was supposed to start around 7:30 and that he did not know the exact timings, I suspect differently. However, 9:30 it was and since Manish knew Amit, one of the organizers of the show and part of the Humrahi group, we immediately went backstage to meet up with him.

It is always a fascinating experience to watch artists preparing for a performance. Whether it is an orator or a singer practicing the throw of his voice, or a musician checking the monitor for the music he is making, the entire exercise is surreal for someone who is only fortunate enough to be part of the audience. As we stood by the side of the stage watching the artists key in their instruments, the show started forming its own picture in our minds. Given that this was an RD show, the entire orchestra was present...the violins, the keyboards, the guitars, the drums, the congo-bongo, the dholak, the saxophone, and even the sound barriers to separate the sound of one instrument from another.

We went outside to have some food before the show started, despite Amit having cautioned us to come back in time to collect our passes since the show was already houseful with the tickets sold off completely even before the day had dawned. We were back in time...well almost. It was 9:40 and the passes had to be given to someone else by then, the first song already performed and the compere already introducing the second. While we did get seats a little later, both of us preferred to stand and sway to the Pancham magic than be rooted in some chair and not even be able to tap the feet freely.

A word for the compere here...she was absolutely fantastic. With her perfect pronunciation and diction, whether she spoke in Hindi, Urdu, or English, Yogini Gandhi (an accomplished Odissi and Kathak dancer and the recipient of Nritya Ratna, as we later came to know) was brilliant...a far cry from what Manish had expected in terms of a compere speaking in Marathi and trying to offer one laugh too many.

The singers were all pretty accomplished as well. Having won quite a few awards in addition to some of the popular Indian television reality shows, they were good enough to engage the audience for the 3-odd hours of pure bliss that the concert was. Starting the proceedings with Musafir hoon yaaron, the line-up of songs was quite well chosen too. Right from the fun numbers like Caravan's Dayya re main kahaan aa phansi to the more sedate ones like Raina beeti jaaye from Amar Prem, invocations ranging from the peppiness of aaja aaja main hoon pyaar tera to the extreme loving heartiness of bada natkhat hai re, variety evident from the engaging Chaand mera dil sequence from Hum Kisi se Kum Nahin marking the interval to the last song of the night in Naam Gum Jaayega, the songs and their placement in the concert were just right and set the tempo perfectly.

The musicians had a field day playing to the galleries in what could be termed as one of the most difficult and yet most enjoyable routine they had had in recent times. By admission of the arranger himself in his introduction speech post interval (most of which I could not follow due to his making it all Marathi), playing RD is the most challenging and yet the most satisfying for a musician and as each one of the musicians heard him and acknowledged what he said with nods of their heads, I could see the passion that they had brought with them to the night...a night when they tried to pay tribute to one of their own, a master but yet someone who took their ilk along, who nurtured and mentored more musical geniuses than perhaps anyone else.

As Manish drove the car back and the folder containing the softer RD melodies started playing in the car stereo, we could be excused for not being able to imagine a better and more content life...at least in the near future!

What you see can kill you

After about two hours of head banging at the IE and network settings, the tech support people were finally able to get the PeopleSoft URL work on my system at about 6 last evening. Not that it was of any use as I realized, to my absolute dejection, that the application server of PeopleSoft was down. There remain seven more working days to the presentation and half of the project is pending...not because I did not do anything but more because I could not. With no access to the system earlier and now even with access, no chance of getting in (the application server continues to be down as of this moment), all of it seems to be a sign of things to come. I am not really bothered but sort of know that coming upon me is a stage of quite a few five-hour work days (instead of the usual two or three).

The Blues is one strangely appealing form of music and given its history (with the Civil War and all), it ought to be. The very purpose of this form of music is to pluck at your heart and the way even a single instrument like a guitar manages to do so speaks volumes of the possibilities. As I sat listening to some blues music, I was sure that I am going to be a big fan. Bubbunda, my guitar instructor, does play very well and of course, the excellent collection of songs and guitar solos and other stuff that he has written on three CDs for me is great.

As for my own progress at guitar, even the P of progress does not seem to be forthcoming. I understand that learning anything new is not a joke and especially starting from scratch on a musical instrument is going to require a lot of patience and that it has only been three odd weeks, but inspite of all this, the frustration has started getting to me. Though my fingers move much faster on the fret board now and I am able to make a guitar run sound like a guitar run at times (instead of random strumming as it used to sound like earlier and does at times even now), but there is a lot more to be desired. With my instructor's emphasis on grammar and his eye for detail, I am not allowed to take the short cut and start playing the chords of any song. I just realized the other day that even after another two weeks, I will only be able to speak the guitar grammar fluently (and may be even teach it to a few) but not really able to play a full song (or even a partial one at that). Well, let's persevere, I say and let's see...

The CD shop in BJ market was in full form yesterday with quite a good addition to stock. I got hold of a DVD with the entire Batman series as also a CD with the original print of The Sound of Music. I have not been able to see these five movies yet as yesterday was devoted to apna Bollywood as I decided to match my wits with Soni Razdan and her much talked about (all due to inconsequential reasons) movie Nazar. Now, this is one movie whose tag line is ever so apt...what you see can definitely kill you in this case...if you do not die of boredom, you will definitely die of laughing at the histrionics (or the lack of it) displayed by Ashmit Patel and Koel Poorie. Meera is definitely the pick of the lot and can act but as for the others in the movie, suffice to say that Avatar Gill comes off the best despite appearing in just two odd frames and unimportant frames at that.

Supposed to be a murder mystery, the movie does have some good initial moments. Like Naina, the other release of the week, Nazar is also loosely adapted from the chinese movie "The Eye" but does not manage to do justice to its inspiration. After a decent beginning, the movie falls flat as soon as the two great (read with at least a few tonnes of sarcasm) actors in Koel Poorie and Ashmit Patel make their entrance. I really don't want to waste any more of your time or my blog space so will stop talking about this movie with this well-meaning suggestion...unless you have nothing to do at all...not even a fly left to swat, don't go for this movie.

Amongst other things, UTI Bank has asked one of its summer interns (a girl from IIM Lucknow) to do a project on campus branding. One of the measures she is planning to suggest is for the bank to go to the campuses through sponsorships of institute activities and festivals. I think that it is a good idea for various reasons, the least being a few HBR cases that I vaguely remember addressing the issue. The UTI Bank does need to raise its profile in the minds of the B-school junta who actually associate it with the Government and half of them do not even know just how privately owned and managed it is. I must say that the bank has done some real good work and the most visible of it is the number of ATMs that one can now see spread all across...even giving the ICICIs and SBIs a run for their money in this arena. And by the way, it is also an opportunity for Backwaters, Horizons, et al...anybody listening?

Toon toon go away?

A large part of yesterday, directly or indirectly, was devoted to the mid term review presentation of our summers. All the nine of us (from four IIMs and XLRI) were all keyed up for the show and were wondering aloud about the usefulness or futility of the exercise. We were also wondering as to the audience of our review presentations. We knew that our respective project managers will be in attendance, but exactly what would be the representation of HR and the higher echelons (including partners and directors) was still an open question. In fact, that would have decided the seriousness with which we would have gone into the presentation, assuming, of course, that the respective managers were already aware of our work (or the lack of it).

As it turned out...or as I made it turn out, my presentation had its own share of informal stuff which started giving me cold feet just when it was time for the presentations. By the time the schedule came, I was hoping...no praying that they put me first because as Khaitan had so ominously been wondering (aloud, of course,...curse him :-)) during lunch time, what would happen if the partners say that they wanted me to skip the cartoons and come to the real part. It was not all cartoons, my presentation, but I was still banking on the toons to give that different class to my stuff. The schedule, of course, did not have my name at all. The first six were listed and as for me, Sandipan and another guy from IIMA, with none of us being in the data warehousing projects, we were put on hold.

Fortune takes strage turns, though. Not sooner than I had come back and settled into my seat worrying about my late turn, the presentation co-ordinator came and told me that I had been called by the HR head. Strangely enough, all the time that I was going up the elevator to meet him, I was thinking that he had probably gone through my presentation and was now calling me to admonish me over the cartoons. It was not that, fortunately and more fortunately, he wanted me to start the presentations since the project manager, I was reporting to, would not be available later in the evening. The cartoons went off really well with the two of them and the PM actually seemed to be a Dilbert fan and had already read most of the cartoons I had displayed in my presentation...what good fortune indeed!

The icing on the cake was that the senior partners and directors (just the four of them, actually) came in the latter half of my presentation and as per custom (of not interfering if one is not present from the beginning), did not ask any questions though they did witness the juiciest parts of my presentation. As I came to know later, they were unrelenting and untiring with the other trainees whose presentations followed mine. I got off on this count, too.

As for the other trainees, as I mentioned already, none of them were spared the quick wit and technical skills of the partners. Most of them were on the wrong side of the verbal gun yesterday and were cursing me for my luck...well, a dog has to have his day some day, what say!!! (a nice rhyme, by the way ;-))

But then, there are a lot of things yet to be done. As my project manager told me at the end of it all, the most significant thing that is going to determine my success or failure in this summer internship program is going to be my final gap analysis report which will be a sort of testimonial to my efforts.

I may not have realized it but the presentation had been a source of tension for me over the last few days. When I came back to the PG after the presentation, I immediately fell dead on the bed. As Asif told me later, I had been snoring away to glory, completely oblivious to all the hullaboo that was happening around me with music playing, people shouting and chatting and what not. Though I did go for the guitar lessons when I got up, I did not particularly put my soul into it yesterday...absolutely no practice and almost imperceptible interest in what was happening.

Coming back to the PG, I found that I had been locked out twice in a row (day before yesterday was a late night because of the Joe Satch show). Luckily (my luck was too good yesterday *cross fingers...touch wood*), the maid came to open the door and thus, the PG Aunty had no way of knowing that it was the same guy who had interrupted her dreams two nights in a row with a phone call in the dead of the night (which she defines as 10:30 PM, by the way).

I must start with the rest of my project work pretty soon if I am to complete the thing in time but then, I have to wait for access to be given to me for the new system and only then can I do something worthwhile. As for the time before that, I guess it is going to be another round of net surfing, blog reading, some chatting (at least as much as the highly erratic messenger connection allows me), perhaps even an e-book reading or who knows...there might just be some work :-)

Just too much...

My Yahoo status message reads: "apun ka weekend...15 hours of movies, 3 hours of guitar concert, 6 hours of French classes, 8 hours of guitar practice, 1/2 hour of work". It does give me a pretty good idea of what I will have to write if I were to cover the events of the past two days. And that is precisely what I am going to do because presenting life as it goes past me gives me the biggest licence to express myself and my thoughts in the way I want to. So here goes...

Kya kool hain hum is an absolute timepass but in the league of movies I like, you will never find a place for this Tushaar (I don't know the latest spelling) and Ritesh starrer. Above everything else, it makes an absolute mockery of the feminine gender and societal issues. In fact, I am pretty surprised why no feminist group has taken up arms against the movie yet. It is so insensitive that it glorifies rape by trying to base the entire story on how a female police officer (the paan-chewing and naturally-sensuous-but-still-trying-to-shed-clothes Isha Koppikar) tries to entice a serial rapist killer suspect into raping her so that she can catch him red-handed. On the other side, the other female lead (who else but Neha Dhupia would be fit for this) tries the same with a guy who she thinks is in love with her brother...man, how uncool can you be!

Main aisa hi hoon, though a non-starter, will certainly find a place of pride in my movie list. Apart from Devgan's acting (which, once again, turns out to be two notches above the rest), the entire plot and the supporting cast (including the for-a-change-looking-good Esha Deol) make for an interesting movie. To add to the flesh, there is the extremely graceful Sushmita Sen (I have been thinking lately...I know it is hard to digest for me but probably she did deserve to win over Aish) and one gifted performer in the girl who plays Devgan's daughter in the movie. The sentiments and emotions are all there in the movie but in as much restrain as ideal...no overdose of loud guffaws or sobs...a balanced directorial outlook and some decent music, too.

It was the third time or so that I feasted myself on these two of Tarantino's amazing works. Personally, I prefer the original Kill Bill to the much hyped sequel. The way Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu fight it out on the snow in the climax of the movie and the scenes in the middle where Thurman demolishes her enemies are pretty much in a different league. Kill Bill 2 is darker and perhaps because of this, did not appeal so much to me. Luckily, I got some amazing prints of the two movies and enjoyed them a great deal.

Swordfish was the umpteenth time, too and so was Face-off. Nevertheless, the movies were on as soon as I heard the familiar Travolta attitude-filled tone coming from the speakers of Anurag's (my PG mate) laptop. Swordfish is certainly meant to be enjoyed all the more by the geeky types...or at least those who know the difference between a 64 bit encrypted string and say...a rope string :-). Halle Berry is great, BTW. Face-off, of course, is full of spice and dares you to let your eyes go off the screen for even an instant. Full of chills and thrills, the chemistry between Nicholas Cage and Travolta is electrifying (BTW, the Amitabh-Bajpai effort in Aks was not bad, either).

The God of guitar was in town. The first ever western music conert by an international artist (I have had quite some experiences of desi bands trying to play foren music) that I attended, I found it worth all the money and hype. Rushing past the barricade into the higher-priced stall was fun as long as it lasted but once we settled down (which is to be read as "once we started to shout our heads off while head banging to the music), the magic began. He really deserves the praise that is heaped upon him and man, does that guy have some stamina! He plays music like triple octave on his guitar (or maybe, I should say guitars, given the frequency with which he was changing them) and keeps moving to the lower end of the fret board, feels as hot as some one in a furnace and yet keeps stringing away for two and a half straight hours without any sort of a break.

The basic difference between an Indian music exponent and Joe Satriani (as also others I have seen performing in video) is, in my humble opinion, one related to the intended audience and its importance in the concert. While the typical Indian musician plays for a higher power (or spirit) and interacts more with his/her music than the audience, a western music performer relies on adrenaline to take the concert through. To get the required dosage, these performers have to be on a platform where they can hear people root for them, shout out, and bang their heads. This is what drives them and this is what gets the best out of them.

The French classes have slowed down a bit or perhaps, all of us in the batch have become a lot more comfortable. Personally, I felt that a lot more could have been covered in the class and we could have gone to at least one level higher in the two days. But there must be purpose in the way things went and the people who designed the course, of course know much more than I do about what they should be doing. And anyways, if we are able to understand this much this quickly, all the better for us.

Unfortunately, I had to miss three straight days of guitar lessons on account of night outs and presentation preparation and what not but I did manage to get in some quality practice time. I am worried about the final shape that this thing is going to take, however. The time that I am spending on this activity, though quite a lot in absolute magnitude, appears quite small when I try to relate it to what I have really learnt. It will suffice to say that in two odd weeks, I haven't progressed much and given the little time remaining, I am forced to think...

After arranging a string of cartoons for my presentation, I did not want to change it and spoil the effect by adding any text :D. All the topics had been covered through some typically satirical Dilbert, CnH and Peanuts cartoons and the real content was as good (or as bad) as a disturbance in the scheme of things. Sivaram (the IIMC guy interning with me) suggested that I let the presentation remain as it is and give printouts of the actual presentation to the audience. Good idea but I did not take the risk and instead put in the real stuff in my presentation itself in a way that the cartoons came first and gradually gave way to the more serious (and relevant ;-)) text.

I have been tweaking the presentation since morning today and have just come back after what, I would say, was a pretty successful and comfortable presentation. This post has ran into quite some length now so I will post more about my presentation and those of my fellow trainees in the next post. Till then...

Too much for a lifetime

I hope that I am not taking up things that are beyond my capacity to handle them. It has been five straight days since I watched a movie and for me, this is quite a lot. The initial days (it has been more than a week, actually) of the guitar lessons are turning out to be quite a task, what with the notes, the cycle of C, the fingers and the chords. At the same time, the French classes scheduled for the weekend are already giving me jitters as I am not sure how much of what was taught last week will I be able to recollect and retain when the time comes for the next lesson. On top of everything else, of course, is the reason why I came to Kolkata, which is, despite what anybody else might think, my summer internship ;-). With the new phase of the project having started and the new team working with seemingly unstoppable enthu, things do not seem to be following a straight line anymore.

The alumni freshers' meet for IIMK in Kolkata is due this month. When Vaibhaw from the Alumni Committee had asked me to take care of it, I had said yes without giving it a thought as I was in a hurry to do a lot of things...pack my stuff, submit assignments, take home end-term papers and what not. Now that I have started making the arrangements and actually calling up people, I have realized that it might turn out to be more than I had bargained for. There are hardly any alumni in Kolkata and even all the freshers are not going to be here in May. As for our batch, there are just two people...Sandipan and me, waiting for Rohit who was supposed to be here this week but has not contacted any of us so far.

I guess that this much of cribbing is enough for the day so shall move on to some thing different...not too different though. I am still in the Dan Brown mode and after finishing a higly engrossing "Angels and Demons" (and giving myself a small break...just enough to re-vitalize my taste buds), I started off with "Digital Fortress". Recommended by a lot of people as delicious fare for the computer-savvy, I had great expectations from the book. To say the truth, it did fulfill most of them. There were a number of references to viruses, worms, 64 bit encryptions, cryptography and powerhouse parallel processing. And more than that, there was the typical Dan Brown thrill-a-minute caper that made the story that more interesting.

However, the book did not excite me enough to finish it off in one sitting, as had been the case with the earlier two. One primary reason for it can be that I may have got used to the tricks of the trade. The character building of the villain of the piece has become too much of a common trait to be a coincidence now. Brown seems to have this habit of building up the qualities of the character who turns out to be the villain in the latter half of the book. And not just this...you can also find the villain to be not a villain actually...just a person who does what he/she believes to be right and in the process, crosses the line somewhere. These people, as Dan Brown shows them, are not inherently bad, but have been forced to do things by the situation and their convictions which often make them prone to be mentally disturbed, too.

Digital Fortress is the story of NSA (National Security Agency for those who haven't read much of Ludlum) and its high profile code breaking Cryptography division which is held to ransom by an ex-employee via the threat of having developed an unbreakable code, a code with mutation strings that can not be out-guessed even by the fastest of parallel computing that NSA is capable of unleashing. Unfortunately for the reader, the suspense is too thin to be of any sustainable interest and not just the villain, but even the fate of the unbreakable code and the climax of the story are quite predictable...certainly a little timid when you compare it to the twist-a-page nature of his other two books. Anyways, the next in line is Deception Point by the author...if things go as peacefully (sic!) as they are going right now, I just might be able to finish it in this lifetime. :-)

Language lessons in the jhups

With the HSBC form-filling occupying most of the day and attention of my project guide, I was left with not much to do on an even otherwise lazy and extremely sweaty Monday. In fact, the Kolkata weather has been showing signs of going beyond any hope of redemption and if this is going to continue or worsen any further, all my wet bed covers and night clothes are surely going to take their toll on me and my early morning blues.

Also, the number of breaks that the gang of summer trainees take have been increasing in proportion to the heat. With Aditya back (he had to miss a few days due to some back pain problems) in action, we had another mind to think of ways and means to escape from the often dreary schedule of many. We had come up with the soup break on Friday apart from our regular Singhara break at the neighboring jhups (as Sandipan likes to call them). Monday saw the birth of the tea and sutta break which happens just outside the back gates of the office at a very shady looking tea stall that has more used tea leaves and empty egg shells than perhaps space for the stall owner to sit.

With Anurag missing from the PG for the second day in a row, I could not get to the CD shop for my quota of the day but I did make full use of my movie time by digging into the reserves and taking out the copy of Saagar that I had so painstakingly ripped from a DVD. I must say that I had thought so little of lingual differences in the past that this movie sort of re-opened my eyes. An allegedly (???) fine actor like Kamal Haasan was reduced to a caricature in this movie just because he was not able to pronounce his dialogues with as much ease as perhaps a decent, yet limited by his talent, Rishi Kapoor could. The sentimental scenes that might have impressed me when I was naiver actually made me laugh this time because I could relate to the difficulties that Kamal was having in expressing the emotions in a way that he was not used to doing. In my little time at Chennai and now at Calicut, I have seen similar things happening to myself and my friends and I can guess how comical we appear while trying to test our new found linguistic skills.

The guitar practice did start but the first day disappointed. I could not get the hang of what the instructor wanted me to do. I guess these are just initial exercises and the first few days are going to be a bit tough, anyways...got to persevere.

As another morning beckons, I realize that it is going to be a Tuesday with an empty stomach, a razor sharp morning and afternoon and a diametrically opposite and inefficient evening and night. Ideally, I would like this day to be relatively a little more productive, what with two things requiring my immediate attention in the project...an interview with the payroll staff and another with the appraisal people to get the details on the only two processes that I have not yet been able to chart out. Work ho!

Of dates, strings, and generous hosts

Life has come a full circle. It seems as if I am back in the Infosys days, looking forward to weekends and finishing off the Friday work as fast as possible. In fact, I used to be surprised at my own capacity to do work on Fridays in those days and that is something that surprised me this Friday, too. I finished off almost the entire presentation that is due for next week and that, too well in time to go back to the PG at 6, with quite a few suggestions on how to make the best of my weekend.

The remaining part of Friday was spent without doing much that can be counted. Most of the time went into trying to find if there was anything worth transferring from Anurag's laptop into my own...I did find some good songs and a few utility software applications but nothing worth the salt...well...till of course, I came across Super Mario...quite a good attempt at re-creating the original, this one made me all nostalgic and made sure that Friday night was real late.

As is evident from the late Friday night, there was hardly anything that could have got me up on Saturday at any time before 11. And so it was that Saturday was spent sleeping but for the date that everyone has been teasing me about.

The fact first: my project guide (who is, by the way, in her mid thirties and mother of a kid who studies in Grade 5) was kind enough to invite me out for lunch so that I do not bore myself stiff as on the last weekend.

The fiction: my good friends here, who have a lot of free time from their summer training at this company (the pack leader being Sandipan), have been making it sound like the date of the century with the story of Murder being re-written and my being lucky and what not...for God's sake, she is as good as my aunt and had asked me out in that sense, too but what the hell...tongues won't stop wagging...no, not even in this case.

Anyways, Saturday lunch it was to be and as I stood at Karunamoyee waiting for her car, Sunita, my project guide (or sub-guide, if you prefer) came along with her mother and uncle in an Esteem and picked me up for what later turned out to be a decent evening. We went to a place called Swabhumi which has been created as an amalgamation of markets in the traditional Indian style. Rajasthani craft, Delhi's Meena Bazaar and a lot of other traditional markets of India were replicated in Swabhumi, the place also carrying within itself, an open air theatre (which, fortunately, was playing some good Hinglish theatre when we went there and I spent quite some time watching the play, rather regardless of the three other people with me but then, theatre does that to me).

We had some light lunch (it was too hot for anything else) and then made a move to Sunita's maternal home, a house, which she told me, was 150 years old. The typical Bengali decor, the typical Bengali atmosphere, and the typical Bengali people and their hospitality greeted me as I got to comparing the house with my own at Buxar (which must be close to 150 as well if ages are considered). However, the two houses are as alike as they are different. With artificial ceilings and damp interiors being common, the houses were different in the way they were lived in, each speaking volumes about the generations that have made the place their home for all these years.

The evening out with Sunita ended with some Luchi (I confused it with Leechi and agreed to it as soon as she asked me...it actually turned out to be pooris) and simple Aloo curry with sweets...a second lunch but then again, by that time, a lot of water had passed under the bridge and I was feeling that I had started sharing a decent rapport with Sunita and her family with jokes, confidences being shared and the atmosphere being pretty informal.

As I moved out of her place to go on to the metro station at Jatin Das Park, came the event of the weekend. I got down at MG Road and called up Arnav to find out the location of the guitar shop that he was supposed to take me to. With him being busy on the weekends and the weekdays being too full to take time out before the shops close their shutters, I decided that it was time that I took the matters in my hands and that is what I did. I took a taxi down to the place near Park Street that Arnav told me about and after two closed shops, I came to this place that deals specifically in guitars and with Arnav on the phone to help me out, I got myself an accoustic Hobner Guitar. I hope to make the best of my stay here and the relatively free time that I have to get an entry into this instrument and the rest, of course, is going to be shaped by further efforts and regular practice.

Sunday was not without its own share of events, either. With Asif making his entry into the PG (on the fourth and the last empty bed in our room), I had some good time talking to him and more than that, listening to him speak about his struggles since his father passed away and how he made it to Wipro after a long list of efforts unrewarded and failures unwarranted. In the meanwhile, Rajesh and Sandipan called me up to fix an evening out. With both of them in two opposite corners of the city, I had to choose between them and I chose to go out with Sandipan as that meant being able to meet the IIMK seniors who might not be available the next time. I just hope that Rajesh understood and did not take it the wrong way.

Finally, when I did go out to Park Street, a second time over the weekend, there were no IIMK seniors (too busy doing nothing, I guess) but instead Sandipan's girl friend and his friend/ex-colleague with his girl friend. As I made my way into Magnolia (a decent eat, by the way...close to Barista's..opposite The Park Hotel), I wondered if I will be the odd one out but as it turned out, the evening was just right...with food and drinks on Sandipan's friend (he said that I was a guest and was not supposed to pay the first time...good chap, that...I liked him from there on...two generous hosts in two days, I must be getting lucky) and conversation flowing too (at times in Bengali but then I have begun to get some hang of it, anyways), I had a decent time.

Today should not be too hectic because generally Mondays at job are spent procrastinating and in all probability, apart from doing the needful, I shall be doing the same...procrastinating, that is. Also, too many days have gone by without movies and if I am to get my quota of two a day, I got to do something fast...real fast. The guitar lessons should also kick off from today and that will need some time, as well. I just hope that my room mates at the PG will find me tolerable for the next few days as I sit tuning my guitar, tormenting them with the amateur string pulling.