While grabbing coffee from the office pantry one morning, I notice that the milk tetra pack was straight up ripped apart.

Me: Why don’t people know how to open a milk carton? I mean really! How difficult is it?

Rhi: What do you mean?

Me: Look at this (I show her the carton). Instead of opening it carefully at [...]]]>

While grabbing coffee from the office pantry one morning, I notice that the milk tetra pack was straight up ripped apart.

Me: Why don’t people know how to open a milk carton? I mean really! How difficult is it?

Rhi: What do you mean?

Me: Look at this (I show her the carton). Instead of opening it carefully at the place where it CLEARLY says “to open”, they attack it like when a fat kid sees cake. I’m working with people with degrees from some of the top schools in the country. And they can’t open a carton properly!?

Rhi: Oh sweetie, it’s because they are men.

Me: …

2.75 hours ago: 9.15 am this morning

I’m running to the Path station. All groggy and wishing and hoping that I make my 10 o’clock meeting. I’m listening to Steven Tyler singing about some chick called Janie who has a gun and wants to shoot someone and I’m this close to embarking on a similar carnage [...]]]> Here’s why:

2.75 hours ago: 9.15 am this morning

I’m running to the Path station. All groggy and wishing and hoping that I make my 10 o’clock meeting. I’m listening to Steven Tyler singing about some chick called Janie who has a gun and wants to shoot someone and I’m this close to embarking on a similar carnage of my own not with a gun because I don’t own one and DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE I CAN GET ONE! Instead I’m going to use my index finger and poke people in the eye. Because I’ve had the suckiest morning ever. Like ever.

3 hours ago: 9 am this morning

The oh-so-familiar iPhone ringtone wakes me up and I’m greeted with D’s pretty face on the caller id. As I barely manage to mumble a hello, she’s all, “Uh, you still sleeping? Why aren’t you at work already?”. I ask her the time, and she goes, “Umm.. 9 o’clock.” And then all I remember is scurrying out of bed, connecting my gazzillion portable devices to their respective chargers, all the while listening to D yell at me for something I still have no clue about, gulping down milk that expired like 20 years ago coz it tastes like horse piss, I hop into the shower.

5 hours ago: 7 am this morning

I’m in deep sleep and surprisingly not dreaming about getting shot by gangsters or cops (you’d be surprised how often I have dreams where I get killed). And deep down in my subconscious, I wonder why my alarm isn’t ringing. Because it’s a goddamn bitch when I get up before my alarm rings and realize that I could have slept for another half hour and then realize that I can’t fall asleep because the sunlight seeping through the blinds is at the perfect angle to keep my eyes from closing and turning the other way wouldn’t help because my brain’s already seen the light! It’s like a tiger that’s tasted blood for the first time ever or that saying about going black. You just can’t go back. But I rationalize the thought by telling myself that since I can’t feel any sunlight falling on my eyes, the sun hasn’t risen yet, and hence I have plenty of time before I need to get up!

13 hours ago: 11 pm last night

After an interesting conversation with KB about love, life and other random crap, I go to bed all pleased with myself for being all awesomely productive through the day and having grabbed Boost by its testicles and taming the shit out of it. And I’m all, “Wait! The sun rises sooner now. I need to sleep properly. I should probably wear my eye patch sleep thingy before I go to bed.” So that’s exactly what I did.

26 hours ago: 6.45 am yesterday

WHY DOESN’T THIS ALARM STOP SNOOZING! WHY WON’T IT JUST LET ME SLEEP IN PEACE. And then I do what any awesome guy would do in my place. I turn the alarm off. No. Not just the snooze. Because that’s not enough awesome. I UNLOCK MY PHONE, NAVIGATE TO THE CLOCK MENU, AND DELETE THE DAILY ALARM FROM MY PHONE.

And since I’m not much of a praying guy, I’m putting this out here. On the interwebs. Because the universe will OBVIOUSLY Facebook stalk me when it finds out all the negative energy I’ve let out in the span of 3 hours today, and it’ll be all, “Who is this dude that’s been trash talking me?” And when it finds my blog, it’ll come visit and read this post, feel sorry and do all sorts of universy magic to make my life better like banning snooze buttons from alarm clocks and those eye patch sleep thingies that keep the damn sunlight out of my eyes and mislead me into mistaking day for night.

So I attended a charity event this evening in New York. It was a fundraiser for an organization called SAYA that is devoted to benefiting South Asian kids from New York City. It was hosted at a [...]]]> Few things in life are better than getting wasted on a Wednesday evening. Very few things.

So I attended a charity event this evening in New York. It was a fundraiser for an organization called SAYA that is devoted to benefiting South Asian kids from New York City. It was hosted at a club called Greenhouse. All through the week, my friends and me kept discussing over email whether this event was worth our totally precious time, because we’re like all so awesome and like all so busy and oh did I mention that we’re all so awesome that our time is worth like a gigaazzilion bullions of platinum. One of the reasons, we did decide to attend the event was that Greenhouse is an extremely exclusive club and most regular people don’t ever manage to get in. So that being decided, we grab a platter from the dude on 53rd and 6th and hop onto the E train downtown.

The mandatory image that, I realize, adds no value to my writing

The place was exactly how I imagined it would be. Very sleek, excellent ambience and the most ridiculously expensive half priced drinks that made me feel like I was selling my soul to pay for. The crowd was primarily Indian, because, well it was a South Asian Youth event. So yah. Now the reason I have a dismal record at talking to women at bars/clubs is because I feel the need to have a lot of quiet around me to hold a meaningful conversation. Or even to exchange a word. Or two. Now the DJ at the club was real good, but too goddamn loud for a networking event. I mean COME ON! If I’m supposed to mingle with people, AT LEAST LET ME HEAR THEM SPEAK! So I manage to introduce myself after having gotten close enough to make out with the fungus that grows on the wax in her ears, I go like, “What do you think of this place?” and she’s yells, “Vodka and cranberry juice”, and I go, “Hmm.. Okay.” WTF.

After that I’m like, “Screw it. Where’s my drink?” And that is when the awesomeness got cranked up to the max. Because after my Long Island, most of the evening flew by in a wonderful haze that I can barely recall. Except the part when I’m talking to a friend and I’m all, “Hey! Why are you wearing pants?” YES! I’m the undisputed champion of awkward moments.

Yes, I’m visiting my parents, sister and grandmum in Bombay, India after nearly 2 [...]]]> For the clueless, the title of this post refers to the ubiquitous line every train traveler in Bombay should have uttered at least once in their lifetime. Roughly translated it means, “Dude, on what side of the train is the platform gonna be?”.

Yes, I’m visiting my parents, sister and grandmum in Bombay, India after nearly 2 years. And the experience has been, well, mixed. As I exited the airport after haggling with the customs officer, a ferocious blast of heat hits me. Ah! The advantages of living in a tropical country. I went from subzero temperatures to absolute sweltering heat. On the bright side, I had some delicious butter chicken awaiting me as I got home! Yum!

A few thoughts on my first day in the motherland.

• A massive infrastructure project in the city has pretty much resulted in all of the suburb roads being dug up. Yes, ALL OF IT! A direct consequence of it is that it quadruples the time taken to travel any distance. The ride from my parents’ home to the train station, which typically takes less than half an hour, yesterday, took over an hour.
• Which brings me to my second observation. Whoever thought that it was a brilliant idea to put LCD screens in the mass transit buses, needs to be strung up upside down and flogged to death. I was holding my throbbing head to stop the unbearable pain. And the producer who came up with the ridiculous programs/commercials that are aired, needs to be buried. Alive.
• The general population seems to have a complete disregard for any kind of nasal hygiene. People simply stuck their index fingers into their noses and shagged it with the joy akin to jerking off.
• I also visited the home of my most favorite person in the whole world. My drama teacher from when I was a kid. Unfortunately, she was out. So I had to contend with leaving a hastily scribbled note with my Mum’s telephone number, because as ridiculous as it sounds, I couldn’t remember my own phone number.
• I have also started immunizing my body with a variety of scrumptious delicacies from the streets of Bombay. Nimbu pani, chicken frankie, samosa, vada pav, dabeli, roadside chinese food, topped with maaza. Slurp!

This was just day 1. Stay tuned for more of my India shenanigans.

My closet-sized studio is on the 19th floor of my 34 story apartment building. Statistically, approximately half the people getting into the elevator with me should hit a button less than 19. The other half should hit [...]]]> One of the few quirky (and possibly dumb) things that makes me super happy happened a few days ago.

My closet-sized studio is on the 19th floor of my 34 story apartment building. Statistically, approximately half the people getting into the elevator with me should hit a button less than 19. The other half should hit 19 or a higher floor. Now, it irks me to no end when I find people taking the elevator to go to the 1st floor or taking the elevator down or up 1 storey instead of hauling their lazy asses to the up/down 1 flight of stairs. Don’t get me wrong- this irritation is only reserved for people who aren’t 80 or don’t have a broken leg.

Coming back to my point, the other day, I get back from my run and hop into the elevator along with a motley crew of other punks who live in my building. I hit 19 and moved to the back of the elevator. And one by one, the others start punching in their floor buttons. 23. 34. “Woah!”, screamed my mind and promptly jumped out of its lethargic stupor. There were 4 (5, if you count the little girl accompanying her mommy) more people who needed to push their floor buttons. “Nah, I can”t be that lucky!”, I wondered. Next up, two dudes, one of whom wasn’t aware that deodorants were in existence for over a 100 years. Smelly-dude hits floor 30. Not-so-smelly-dude checks out all the buttons for a good 10 seconds. After a brief look of confusion on his face, it dawns on him that 23 was already lit up. Phew! The mommy-daughter pair didn’t waste much time. They entered the car, mommy hits 34 and picks up daughter to make place in the elevator.

Finally, the moment of truth. A tall, blonde, sharply dressed pyt steps into the elevator. She raises her slender arm towards the buttons, I can’t decide whether to admire her gorgeous hair or watch her manicured index finger as it inches towards the button that could possibly end my dream run. My heart was pounding in anticipation of what I hoped would be my glorious victory over the elevator cynics. My eyeballs oscillated from her finger to the partial of her face that was visible to me. Face. Finger. Finger. Face. Face. Finger. Finger Face. Drumroll. 27. Woohooo! My brain started to do the bhangra and my face wore a massive smile. My fellow occupants in the elevator were starting to get creeped out. But I didn’t care. As the elevator screeched to halt on 19, I could hear the others groan as they shuffled to make place for me to exit the car. Hah! Sweet vengeance!

Cheap thrills I tell you. Sigh!

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to the windy city of Chicago this weekend. And boy, what a massively jinxed trip its been.

To start with, I missed my flight on Thursday evening and wasn’t able to get onto another flight as a standby. And since [...]]]>

Birds eye view of the New Gotham

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to the windy city of Chicago this weekend. And boy, what a massively jinxed trip its been.

To start with, I missed my flight on Thursday evening and wasn’t able to get onto another flight as a standby. And since I love my friends so much, I decided to book a single ticket down to O’Hare. Note the emphasis on booking a single ticket. I originally planned to take my original return flight back. But fate had other plans in store for me. More on that later.

So I grab my bag (sans laptop this time. Yes, you heard me- who needs the lappy when I got my trusted IPhone!), taxied to JFK, hopped onto AA 655 and was in Chicagoland in 2 hours 25 minutes. My pal lived way on the other side of town, so after changing a couple of trains, including a slight screw up with the directions given to me, I reached my buddy’s apartment. I like Chicago. It reminds me of New York in several ways. There is never a lack of places to spend money. Michigan Ave. is a total Fifth Ave. wannabe. From the designer stores to buildings with fancy-schmancy post-modern architecture, Chicago has it all.

Most of the trip was rather uneventful. The usual college buddies meeting after really long, catching up with each others lives, dealing with awkward moments and quirky behavior- we had it all. Not to mention the drama, the tears, the micro-managing, the over-analyzing of every goddamn thing. I somehow felt a very subtle restraint in most people. No one was ready to push limits, “caring” for other people’s feelings and all that kind of bullshit. It was just like old times. Mann, I miss college! We also did most of the touristy bullshit- Millennium Park, that crappy steel bean thingy, the Face Fountain, Sears Tower, Navy Pier and the architectural boat ride (which btw, was the most zzzzz inducing of all). The shitty part of the day was the weather. The sun was shining at its scorching best. Made me look like a rickshaw driver right out of City of Joy.

But the highlight of the trip was most definitely Saturday night. After dinner, the group headed to a club called Soundbar. A very classy place. Charged an entry fee of 20 dollars. Well worth the money spent. The music was good, the crowd was decent, smoke free, and an extremely high octane environment. Oh and it also had skimpily clad dancers. Not that I care. Hah! As for me, I was completely and totally in a mood to dance. I felt like I had a huge weight lifted of my chest. I was ready to take over the world. ‘Khulla saand‘ as Saifoo would put it. I felt this strange confidence possess me that helped overcome all my inhibitions. I was looking sharp and surrounded by beautiful women. I was all over the place, dancing like a free bird. Downing shots like there’s no tomorrow!

Coming back to my original story, my friend suggested that since I had missed my flight to Chicago on the original ticket, I should at least confirm my return flight. I tried checking-in via the website. No dice. So I spent the next hour talking to a douchebag/retarded representative from United Airlines trying to knock some sense into her head. But noooo! Why would they listen to the voice of reason, when they have capitalistic morons brainwashing them into operating a loss making industry by spouting stupid United-isms such as “I’m sorry Sir, I understand your problem, but we have to charge you an additional 600 dollars to open the reservation.“, “It’s our policy. I can’t help it.“, “Our resources have indicated that your reservation has zero value.“. Zero value?! ZERO VALUE!!? My 300 dollar ticket has zero goddamn value! Should have seen it coming after this. Needless to say, I ain’t gonna be flying United Air anytime soon. Go suck it, bitches. I hope you burn to the ground.

The badluck didn’t stop there. As I handed a little Chicago shotglass souvenir to Little m, I realized that it was broken. At this point, I could hardly care any less. I give up. Sigh!