Travel,A Crazy Baby and Neutrality - 2

Ok, I'm back (Not that anybody cares). Well, the last time I wrote, i mentioned that we were at Margao railway station waiting for our train. Finally when the bloody train arrived,we were so tired that we ended up in the sleeper coach and happily paid 80 bucks extra each to settle there. Now I gotta admit,the route to Belgaum from Margaon was pure and simple heaven. That's the kind of stuff you get to see if you are a traveller. The journey made me realise why they say that Travel broadens a man's horizons. It is because you get to see a completely different side of the world. A world far removed from filth and ugliness. A world showing off its beauty to a few select people. And i was fortunate enough to see it.

Finally, We reached our destination for the next 3 days, Belgaum. Now Belgaum from what i heard is basically an Army cantonment surrounded by a city. Well,City is basically a little too much. It's more like a medium town,Not a small town because it's got something that catapults it out of the unremarkable list of small towns. CAFE COFFEE DAY. Yeah,Humanity's greatest benchmark of civilisation,a coffee shop. Unfortunately we landed at Belgaum railway station at night. Night-time is when all the shady characters turn up out of nowhere. And Belgaum wasn't behind in that league either. Some of the people looked so sinister they wouldn't be out of place in an Edgar Allan Poe short story. Luckily the organisers turned up and got us out of there.

I got into the ubiquitous auto-rickshaw with a couple of guys and we made our way to the hotel where we were to be put up. The hotel's name was Hotel Ramdev which seemed to be the only decent eating joint in the entire place (Don't forget CCD). I entered my room and nearly fainted in shock. There were 18 of us and only 3 rooms. So some last minute adjustments and damage control were done, But the fact remained that there were 5 of us sleeping in a room meant for 2 people. Cramping indeed. However when you are with friends, you tend to concentrate on more interesting things like the cute chicks around you.

I forget to mention one of our sources of Entertainment. Forgive me my Mallu friends if you are offended by this , but please remember, i mean no offence. There was this mallu gal in the next room who apparently thought it prudent to inform us about every damn action planned by her. It was tolerable to a certain extent, but what do you say to "I am in the toilet". Me thinks the hotel's walls are too thin.

The next day we woke up with grumpy faces and even grumpier stomachs thanks to the last night's hakka noodles at some restaurant where it seemed we were the 1st customers in a long time. However, We were at a fest and not on a holiday as was intimated to us by every 2nd person including the bellboy (No tips for you jerkoff!). Now luckily i didn't have any of my rounds that day, so i planned to roam around belgaum, paint the town red, flirt with some PYTs around and do anything that my imagination would permit. Or so i thought. To my horror i realised that i had forgotten about something really important, The Ice-Breaker....

Taking a leaf out of Ekta Kapoor's book

To Be Continued.....(Someday!)

Travel,A Crazy Baby and Neutrality

Lately i've been doing a little bit of travelling here and there. A month back,i got the news that i'll be participating in my 1st ever lone wolf (Solo) business quiz. Now the term business quiz kinda sends shivers down my spine because unlike a regular GK quiz, i can never really get the hang of a business quiz because most questions in a business quiz come under 2 categories, Insanely easy and psychotically tough. And i am the kind of guy who never really likes to prepare for a quiz. So i just set out to Belgaum last week to face what would be a rip-roaring, mind-blasting experience.

Now, I'm not exactly a big fan of travelling. Especially when it comes to Long journeys, God alone knows how i manage to keep my sanity intact at the end of it. Like most Geminis i'm annoyingly restless and when i get restless, without my knowledge i get on other people's nerves. Add to that the consternation in my mind when i came to know that we have to change a train to Belgaum from Goa. But since i was too resigned to my fate, i resisted from cursing the Great Indian Railways(Which for your information is the organisation with the highest number of employees). Now the preparations for Belgaum began.

A typical management fest consists of the following events give or take a couple, Marketing , Stock, Advertising, Finance, Best Manager, HR and of course Business Quiz. Well, I've been a quizzer since my school days and been a pretty decent one at that (The trophies in my shelf stand as a testament to that) but back then, they were mostly general quizzes held at the district level, so the level of competition at that time was pretty easy, but the moment i stepped into college, i knew i was in a totally different ball game. Anyways that's history,will post more on that in some other post. Now as the preparations for this fest began, so did all the craziness. Turns out that we had to take a 1st yr team along too. So there was a little babysitting involved here(Any of my juniors read this,they're gonna kill me). So that led to late night reports, brainstorming sessions , lack of sleep etc.

Finally came the day of the journey, 6 hrs to Margao and 4 hrs to Belgaum from there. The 1st part of the journey was pretty dull, but the journey from Margao to Belgaum was pretty interesting.

Ok,this is turning into an epic,guess i need to wrap it up here for now,will move into the next part later

In The Name Of The Father

Been biding my time lately watching all the insanity around me imagining myself as the calm little centre of this weird world.However things have been pretty interesting lately.Saw a couple of movies over the weekend.

Cash-Ugh!I was seriously disappointed after watching this movie.It had everything going for it,Cool promos,an equally good starcast(excluding Zayed Khan and the gals),an awesome soundtrack,mind blowing cinematography,pulse racing stunts and what not.But,the movie was 100% gloss and absolutely no substance.The movie moved at a sloooooooooooooow pace and the dialogues mostly sucked.The worst part was the writers of the movie tried acting clever and while in 1-2 instances,it actually worked making you go "Cool",the rest of the time you'd just go "Huh,What was that?".Guess we need to stop working on special effects and stunts and work on the stories.

Gandhi,My Father-How does one describe a beautiful work of art?That's exactly how i felt as i walked out of the theatre today,and it influenced the title of this post(and not the daniel day lewis movie as hollywood purists would think).The movie was sheer poetry.You feel every emotion that's portrayed on screen.Darshan Jariwala shows the vulnerable side of Gandhi with finesse.Akshaye Khanna who finally takes a break from overacting in movies like Salaam-e-Ishq and Aap Ki Khatir does some real acting and proves why he's such a fine actor.He brings out the frustration of Harilal Gandhi with perfection.I wish he showed the same dedication in choosing his movies.Shefali Shah is a pleasure to watch as always.She portrays the anguish of a woman caught in a dilemma flawlessly.Bhoomika Chawla is equally good as Gulab Gandhi and makes you want to see more of her.Anil Kapoor is truly a brave soul for having had the balls to invest in this movie.Unfortunately,the theatre was nearly empty,pity for the movie deserves more.Hopefully,it should be sent to the Oscars this time.

Besides all this,life's still the same as always.Having my share of fun.College is kind of getting more interesting now that all the activities have started.Got some serious travelling to do soon.
Anyways,will post more later.