The year that was

I dont like flowers. Now the hate relationship has become mutual. The bunch of flowers that I bought last week (first ever in my life) didnt serve its intended purpose and ended up in a trash can in my office parking lot. A dark chocolate bar with a high percentage of cocoa content in it (70% actually) also conspired with the gerbaras and decided to melt inside its gift wrapper in the very hot afternoon sun the same day.

No cribs though. For 2007 has been the year of the bananas and this was the sweetest one that I got. There is still a today and a tomorrow to go, but I am confident that that was the last one too.

This is also going to set the tone for 2008. I RESOLVE..

..I am not going to get any more bananas for 08. How will I do that? Simple. Some people are born with limited faculties in the 'luck' department and I have realised I am one among those. I have even realised that my banana stock built up only because I did things that such people shouldn't be doing. No out of the way activities will imply no bananas. By the way, banana is a good friut for health but a solid ego-bruiser.

..I will resume cricket and guitar practice with the enthu I lost some time ago. Only these two can keep me sane. And ofcourse work @ office.

Short list, that one. Hope I get these going. I zeroed down on these on the banks of Malaprabha in the backyard of Pattadkal group of temples yesterday. Took mom and dad on a pilgrimage to our kuldevta and kuldevi in the remote interiors of North Karnataka yesterday (29th).

On 27th morn I got this sudden urge to purge my 2007_sins_bin and asked dad to cancel his solo year end trip to his ancestral god's abode. Mom is eveready to sit in the car provided it satisfies 2 criteria. I drive it. And the destination is not some traffic laden street in Bangalore. 1200 km and her son, Sameer Joshi, the sole driver, were enough to get her ready for the journey in a couple of minutes. And so we set out just after dawn on 28th December on a 3 day pilgrimage to Bhairamatti (dad's kuladevta sits here) and Banashankari (Badami, mom's kuladevi stands here). Pattadkal is nearby too and hence a visit.

They are a happy couple now. Proof..


Bhairamatti appa was happy too.


And so am I. I am PURGED you see.

The only unhappy candidate is the car. Came back with a one stop strategy covering 410 km in 6.5 hrs. It is still crying. Anyways, a very memorable and fruitful trip we had. Personally my shoulder blades are moving like as if some invisible hand has depressed the SHIFT key in the power point presentation called life.

AND AND AND..

I am renewing my 'you hate me I will hate you contract' with flowers. Its absolute this time.

Somnathpur and RangantiTTu

K7 and I had a memorable outing to the above two places last Saturday (22nd Dec). For two reasons I link to his travelogue. I am lazy. He writes better.

Tour de Bangalore

Title courtesy : K7

The last time I did some serious cycling was sometime in 2004 when I was in Chennai. I used to cycle, once every month on an average, from campus in Guindy to my LG's (local guardian, my mom's younger sis) place near Koyambedu. That was apprximately 20 km. On Chennai's relatively flat roads that distance would be traversed in approximately 90 minutes.

Now that I have moved in with my friend to his place just under 3 km from office, after more than 3 years I got this sudden josh to use my Hero Hawk to commute to office. The 'big thing' then was to take the cycle from Vijayangar to CV Raman Nagar, separated approximately by 18 km. Big thing because I completed 25 last month and because the last time I even slept facing the cycle was more than an year ago. Hadnt even bothered to clean it on 2 consecutive Ayudha poojas and was apprehensive that the ayudha would abhor my ass on its seat and cause some irreversible damages.

Surprisingly mom and dad were quite cool about this new found enthusiam in me. Dad was interested in the time I would take to erach office. Some encouragement that one. After some oiling and general conditioning on Saturday afternoon, I started from home at 11 on Sunday morn, with Don Williams crooning in my headset. It was quite sunny and breezy too. I started at a fast pace and then near Anand Rao Circle area I realized I will not make it if I dont slow down. From then on it was more of a pleasure ride, drying all the sweat that had crept down my back during the jawani ki josh phase (first 20 min). Unlike Chennai, this shity never has a decent stretch of flat road. I made it to office in 80 minutes.

It wasnt meant to be a pleasure ride and it wasnt either. Just had to prove a point to myself: I am fit. Occasaionaly I saw a Innova or a Baverian Motor Works car pass by with just the driver in it and cursed them to heart's content. But all along there was this picture in my mind that I tried to keep pushing to the background, with little success though. It was the picture of a red Zma and a mountain mist Wagon-R, hand in hand, shining bright in the afternoon sun, grinning impishly from headlight to headlight.

Samarkhand! That is where I headed after the sun bath. A 'high flying' friend of mine was spending his last weekend here and wanted to treat a few dosts before flying away. We were 5. I was the odd man out, in the sense that the farthest I have gone overseas is the Elephanta caves off Mumbai's coast. The remaining 4 are flourishing or soon to flourish associates/business analysts/traders. So they basically keep flying. The dood who treated was in Singapore 2 weekends ago, in Chicago last weekend, in India this weekend and will be flying to Dubai next weekend.Somehow I couldn't help comparing this to my being in Shivajinagar 2 weekends ago, in Vijayanagar last weekend and CV Raman Nagar this weekend and didnt try keeping back my sense of feeling tiny. He would have gone back and told his wife "Honey I shrunk Josh"!

I came home and slept early. Had to heal two paining body parts. A bruised ego and a bruised ass. The former is doing good now, but my ass.. mummy..

If you cant flaunt it, its not worth having it.

I have a lot of bachelor friends in office. They are more of friends than colleagues. From the outside all of them seem to be happy and cheerful. The more I am with them, the more I wonder. Is there no trouble that haunts them? Is there no grief that hurts? How are they so sanguine always?

To say the least, these doubts are only philosophical and rhetorical.But why did I get these doubts in the first place? I guess it is this. To my friend's soul and mind, I am an outsider. I have no clue on what is happening inside and my inference is based on only what the visage projects. I trivialise all the biological and chemical reactions that are happening inside him because I dont see them and naively conclude that, if he smiles, he must be happy.

I am enlightened! Here lies the solution to all my problems. I need to look at myself from an outsider's perspective. Only then I think I can trivialise them as if they are not mine and smile at them.

I think I know how to make things work in this direction. Let me know if this thought process seemed logical.