25!

Smile shall defy failure and Joy portends end of strife,
Commemorating the silver jubilee for it has been days counting to 25!
Tenacity and verve I do have copious and aplenty,
Patience and Time are the lessons taught etched till eternity!

Sunshine!!!

Powdery and Chocolaty!

Empowered by a Greek Legend this drink boasts his legend,
Powdery and Chocolaty wafts that bliss portend.
Blends in to piping hot lactose this benign Milo,
A stratum remains congealed on top despite spoons spirited gyro.

Yummmy...

Seize the day!

When the barrels are down and the mind is wary,
Listen to thy heart, for it shall rhythmically say yes, where your mind has betrayed.
Focus and Tenacity in unison can accomplish the extraordinary,
Seize the day, for life shall give you tests in which there is no grade!

On special request!

The Beginning...

Destiny has a way of having the last laugh. Rat hole fell victim to it. It was 3rd Jan and the weather was at its tempestuous best. It was howling like a wild hyena trapped by lions. Rat was at his desk browsing through the infinite web pages. Rat suddenly felt thirsty. As the Rat stood …THUDDDDD… The Drawer beneath the study table had caved in to gravity (and this time acting under no inebriation..tsk tsk.. Dream Lover). Phew! Else you had a handicap for sure!!

Well hold your horses..or rats. The day seems have had all the rotten cats in store for the Rat. As Jet and Owl finished their very tiring day, Rat volunteered to make some tea. THUDDDDD… No no the desk didn’t cave in. Rat just spilled whole loads of sugar that Jet had propelled all the way from India. Eeks..now we shall have more creatures in the rat hole…ANTS…Anyways sugar was mopped up and the tea was served .(Her Highness Pooh had requisitioned some as well so one extra serving was the order of the day). Anyways after the grueling experience of having to mop up the floor with stench filled mops and giving Rat Paws tough time…it was time for the Rat to cleanse itself.

It was 7:30 PM.

Shower is one soothing experience. As water trickles, you lose your sense of reality and the dream is what you want to continue till perpetuity. Alas some dreams have to end! And Rat’s did pretty drearily. As the Rat squeezed past the bathroom door laying the paws on a very slippery mat…..zshhhooom…(the sound effects may not be right). Plethora of Blood on the floor. The skin near right ankle above the heel in tatters. Split Wide Open. Apparently a minor slip gave steel edge enough opportunity to find a safe cushion…eeeks…this was a blood bath…

Rat tried to leave the bathroom ..limping..entered the Rat Hole(warm and cozy..when bitten all rats do that). Rat hole was now blood drenched. Owl and Jet now extricate the Rat out of the Rat Hole. After ½ hour of continuous water force on the wound, blood gave up. Jet was by this time ready with ½ a kilo of cotton and probably 1 litre of savlon. Rat shirked. Whiskers that were dangling…drooped. After some oohs and aahs…diluted Savlon was applied on the wound. Owl was more…err…owlish in his manner with concentrated Savlon directly being applied to the wound. That was OUCH.

Jet seems to have had degree in taping wounds. A near perfect job of bandaging the battered area. The Rat was all ready to enter the Rat Hole again…albeit..limping.

It was 9:30 PM. After an inquisitive and worried visit by Pooh..it was time to hit the bed.

This is the beginning….

Gravity-adhering Stream!

Droplets a million dribble down soothing the much ached soul,
Bliss and tranquility attain zeniths as droplets alleviate as they roll.
Destitute am I of that gravity-adhering stream called shower,
Anticipate I do for the instant for my hands tingle to swivel the tap that shall have dreams hover!

Ok do not make faces. This does not mean I do not take bath. Shower is well just the phenomenon I miss!!

:-)

Green Apples!

Rind refulgent in a hue which is pleasantly green,
Hails from the family of fruits, apples, which makes doctors run out of steam.
A nibble in to this benign fruit levitates body, mind and soul,
Flirts with the tongue with a tang mildly tart and senses with passion roll!!

Eat away!

Ode to the Umbrellla :-)

Thankless and Unforgiving the profession may sound, little it objects,
But on fiat it does flare up, like an angel spreading her wings on her benign subjects.
Seasonal you may think is its use, but cornucopia of effervescent goodness fills this article round,
Lo! When things go off beam, it does flare up its chest and like a savior rallies you around!

No I am not off my marbles!! :-)

Aye lal batti,hari matt hona

The air rhymed with harmony, the trees were fluttering with foretaste and birds were tweeting with hope. The century was closing another chapter in history – 2006. 2007 was just below the horizon……

After the accustomed bamboozled preparatory decisions, we (Rat, Owl, Jet, Dipika and Neha) decided to head for Marina Bay. (Ok I haven’t named Dipika and Neha yet. Let me for the sake of the blog call them Pooh and Piglet respectively. Please do not get in to the reasons of why!!).

First stop: Harbour Front. After mingling with the college folks who were heading for a beach party and after the 2 P’s trying hard not to shop anything, we decided that our stomach cravings need to be satiated else hell shall break loose. Owl has an uncanny habit of having a relationship one degree lesser than revulsion with all salespersons and cleaners in Singapore. Well, ours was the only table that the cleaner refused to free of contaminations. Anyways, we managed that!!


After the customary expedition through the worm train (MRT) and the usual back and forth over and through the escalator we landed up at City Hall. Mumbai local trains were put to ignominy. The area was cramped. We arrived at around 11 PM and we thought we were early! People had already parked themselves in every nook, cranny, cleft or crevice available.

‘It’s the final countdown’ filled the air in expectancy. Last few minutes of what had been a turbulent, fun filled year. 2006 was soon becoming a narration. Air was expecting a change. The usually wet and rain drenched Singapore was unusually dry. Rain God had kept away. Then something gave away. Clock stuck 12. The atmosphere went multihued and variegated. There was a detonation of colours. The sound of crackers reverberated in the pristine Lion Kingdom. The fireworks ushered in a new era and new dawn and a new year!!

2007 was here!!!!

With a spinning head and incredulity we decided to head on to the subsequent leg of our journey – Clarke Quay. Well, we did so almost smoothly – Rat had gone astray in between, we were being trampled in the bevy of Singaporean mass, we just about managed to catch the last train – yes it was downy and smooth!

Singapore is as alluring and as resplendent as Dubai. A look at Clarke Quay, the river side Pub Haven, shall divulge the splendours of Singapore. We settled ourselves by the river side at Hooters(after much ado) and eventually engaged ourselves in a splendid game of Dumb Charades. It was Rat, Pooh and Jet teamed up against Piglet and Owl. Rat –Pooh-Jet was no wonder up the trumps in closely matched event. Time must have slipped in an overdrive at warp speed. It was 3 AM, time to close shop and guess what …no transportation back home!

Anyways a sight of 7-11 was enough for the 2 P’s to get in to the muffin craving mode and a nice little round of Antakshari later, we realized that the Sun was ready to peek in for the first time in Singapore in 2007. 5:30 AM, we decided to give MRT a try and lo! It was up and ready.

After a brief excursion to Labrador Park to catch a glimpse of the bashful sun and after a dab a piping hot masala dosa, hostel beckoned and time to regroup and restart.(Pooh and Piglet were in thoughtful disposition by this time and Owl was in his own world…I was just left wondering with Jet trying his heart out to make sense out of the breezy waters) So tired were we that on suggestion on running to catch a bus which ominously close to the bus stop (at some distance away) and only bounded by traffic signal, Jet commented ‘ Aye lal batti,hari matt hona’. Well the red light was not so kind and we had caught the next one only to crash in to our bed a little time later…..9 AM…..Dreams unlimited.

Happy New Year Folks!

Get well soon!

Stability has been discernible by its dearth; pluck shall not take flight,
Mind tempted to be squat and meek, tenacity is what extricate you from the plight!
This blighted sickness shall mislay its garrote; tranquility shall awake from amnesia,
Fight fight and fight the worst is behind you, get well soon O my cousin Anusha!!

Get well soon...2007 is around the corner!! :-)

A promise is a promise!

I am the IT Leader!!

Verdant land of Singapore was moaning under the oppression of heavy winds. Angels were weeping from the sky. The gloom of the horizon was ominous and visible from my Rat Hole. Ah! Didn’t I tell you? Rat hole does have windows! Two of them. One of them is actually a complete window and other one, well, a poor excuse of it, badly obscured by a pillar. Rat hole after all!

Do not let the anguish of the preceding paragraph delude you in to a misconception on the atmosphere of the room. I would not say it was lively and sorts, but neither was it somber. Three of us (Rat, Invisible man and the Jet) were at our books(or were at least pretending to be). As for the Owl, he was probably out there in the howling of the night, focusing ever so intensely on his next victim (Come on laugh!!). Anyways, it was about 10:30 PM (time which portends dawn of a new day for many in Singapore) and what was about to happen in the span of the next hour or so was truly a manifestation of mental turbulence that these folks undergo during the course of a MBA.

The door squeaked open paving way to a hoarse cry ‘I am the IT leader!!’ We gaped in surprise and in unison, it was Vivek( Psycho as he is known as!). What proceeded from his mouth in the duration of the next few minutes apart from his habitual taunts directed towards the Invisible Man have been cleansed while penning the contents of this blog! His frustration clearly directed at the paper scheduled the ensuing morning for the IT guys. ‘I do not care a rat’s ass for the paper’ he said. Though I must take hostilities towards defamation of the sacrosanct creature especially in a rat hole!
Ah well! I continued my reading on ‘For God, Country and Coca Cola’. A capital read indeed.

‘Changing Coke is like God making grass purple’ strong sentiments echoed by millions of Americans on their pet drink. So engrossed was I in the book that little did it dawn on me that there was second visitor to the rat hole. Only when a soft voice bespoke ‘Abbey kal ke IT exam ke liye kya padna hain’ did I realize of the humanly presence. It took only expectant faces and a few seconds for Teghjeet to air out his frustrations on the state of affairs. Back to Coca Cola and the art of making money, and then there was loud cry from beyond the door followed by a slam and a very peeved Vineet (Bade Bhaiyya) walking in. And yes what ensued has been purged, for my over curious readers.

More frustrations were to follow during the course my perusal of the book. Strangely the next visitor was finance guy, Sid Ghaisas, who announced in his usual flair ‘I have given up studying’. Finance or IT story remains the same. Frustrations do indeed descry themselves in variegated forms. You might have heard of people jumping all over the place. Well I have witnessed gravity failing under acute frustration. This manifested in the form of Hemant(Dream Lover), who was all over, except the floor of course! By this time Coca Cola was looking more like ‘C_ c_ C_l_’ to me(well gravity has been very mean to my eyelids many a times). Have you noticed vowels are always the first ones to fly off?
I could hear frustration revealing itself in the form of an ice cream, when Invisible man and Teghjeet set out plans to venture out and grab some. Considering the not so auspicious squally weather that seemed to have persisted despite erratic behavior by gravity, the plan was soon abandoned.

Well eyes had almost settled in the balmy comforts of the eyelids and then there was Tushar who stopped by. My ears were expecting the culmination of all the frustrations to personify. Pleasantly, he had stopped by for a movie file and the Rat hole had absorbed all it could have for the night…..

Frustrations are the tests that nature gives us! But Rat Hole is something that you have to extricate, never let the frustration grow into an insidious behemoth devil for it shall encumber you with gloom and restlessness…

Go find yourself a Rat Hole!!

Bicycle Jaunt!!

Tiring though it was, the bicycle jaunt (and an epic episode!) was worth a million years,
Riding on the pier with a melting heart; hugged by the evening sky and cajoled by the green murky waters.
Exhaustion knew no bounds but the zephyr that caressed was nothing less than holy,
Eyes began to droop, but rejuvenation ambushed in the form of piping hot puran-poli!

Rat Hole at Room 523

This will come as a surprise to my loyal blog readers for this blog is devoid of any rhymes. It is devoid of any scheme. Well most of my blogs are devoid of schemes! So what am I writing about? Well to begin with I am not sure. I sit here in this corner which my roommates have so disreputably called ‘rat hole’ for I seem to have limited my interactions with the outside world to the bare minimum, required for sustenance. Have I? I will come back to that.

My room. This looks more like an wholesale edition of a train compartment. It has four beds (compartmental if I may say) and of course 3 lovely roommates and yours truly occupying his rat hole. Cupboards or poor excuses of cupboards and study table which was designed brilliantly immovable. On that note cupboards do not have locks..well actually the locks are exultantly non existent! How can I forget the chairs? These blighters have an inbuilt momentum, they throw you off their seats (literally).Ask my roommate Amey. He has had the poor fate of having fallen flat on his nose one more than one juncture (well on that note he also bumped in to a glass door and distended his forehead… pinkish hue!). May be its Amey and not the chairs? May be he runs on jet fuel!

My train also has good quilts on beds. Ask Ankit. He adores those. In fact, once inside you would have to plumb deep and dig really hard to find out where the chap really is!! It also has an owl, IT wizard and a blogger. Naa…I have only 3 roommates. Sid,the owl(and wizard et al), abhors sleeping. He has not realized the potential of his eyelids and the potential reassurance his bed can provide. Rumours are that he has even stopped sleeping in the class!

And then there is my rat hole! Well as far as my interaction goes I have enough of it! A jet propellant, an owl and an invisible man..!

Adios…
More on my room in next! Please do comment!

Smiles blitzkrieg

Conglomeration aggregated as the clock stuck the blessed hour,
Smiles blitzkrieg, beguiling at times, daubed a confused countenance all over!
Palates (and a face!) treated to coffee flavored cake and piping hot tutu,
Singapore hummed in unison ‘Happy Birthday Chotttttttttttttttttu’.


Happy B’day Sid!!!

Insomnia and Turbulence

In a state of insomnia and turbulence,
Slumber seems to be a remote saccharine dream.
Body knows no rationale, mind strives to a sustain a balance,
Horizon may be distant but pastures do appear green!

In a state of insomnia and turbulence,
Coffee blissfully oblivious of the import it portrays!
Slumber shall be in abeyance and nap only on chance,
Numbness tries to incarcerate a mind in overdrive, in vain anyways!

In a state of insomnia and turbulence,
Slumber may privilege itself another day.
Gusto and fire still blaze disheveled though my appearance,
Beyond the horizon in ambush I am sure success does lay!

Of Smiles and Blushes!!

Expansive smiles and blushes pink bedecked on two faces apart,
Birthdays they do share and in goodness that reeks you cannot tell them apart!
Assignments may hound us but the spirit shall not say its last,
The college reverberated ‘Happy B’day Manisha and Amey’ for now till eternity and to last!

P.S: Amey did manage to hunt through piles of wrapper paper for a gift beloved at last!!!
:-)

No hounding me please :-)

Ambling through the greens

Stretches by the intense verdant landscape,
Silently praying while they on mud lands they drape.
Ever winding, ever twisting and motherly heed they do possess,
Ambling through the greens, never complaining of the brutalities mortal profess!

The pic was taken on Canterbury Street!

Tutu!

Wind stood still, pondering which direction to would suit best,
Crescent moon enmeshed among the cajoling cloud, away from the worldly unrest.

Green Lion’s Den haven in this quibbling world of common herd,
Tutu, Chinese namesake for Modak, caressed by tastebuds with flavours unheard.

Walk was long, lonesome in swarm and yet tranquil,
Crazy night dotted democratic misgivings and walk so long that it required a painkilling pill!

Pug Marks...

Away from the Dubai deserts and my Mumbai’s shore,
Verdant Singapore beseeches me caressingly in to her core. :-)
Rapture and gusto score my every stroll,
Lion Kingdom has engraved its pug marks on my soul.

Saga till eternity…Mumbai my city!

Queues anticipate every progress, Whiff iniquitous hails at every corner,
Pot-bellied hawaldars and roads inundated with revamp forever!
Taxis of yellow-black hue and creaking body yet run with alacrity,
Saga till eternity…Mumbai my city!

Streams of Red that flurry through that we discern is the BEST,
Worms on track transfer millions at no extraordinary behest.
Dabba wala or the vada pav stall, flavor buds shall never cease marveling in this city,
Saga till eternity…Mumbai my city!

I can go on...but would like to salute the the spirit of the city I call home!

Rendezvous with Gomati

Muddled mind and ruminating heart it was en route airport,
Desert’s eventual call as the grains bid farewell ere I did deport!
Refulgent in an afternoon glaze, reveled my Gomati,
After much ado, thuddd it did at a bizarre yet decipherable city I call home and will till eternity!

Gomati is the name of the flight I traveled in..