Ruse, Muse, Obtuse

And the Saga ends....

I've been waiting for almost two years for the last installment of Harry Potter. As the days to July 21st came closer the anticipation and longing grew exponentially. I pre-ordered my copy and the week before the release, pre-ordered it in another store which is closer to where i live so that worst come worse I could walk to the store in the morning.

As i lay awake on friday night a part of me was reluctant to see the light of the next day. Once i had the book it would all be over. One of the best things I've read would come to an end.

I woke up early and was outside the store before it could open. I stood out and waved my pre-ordered voucher to the people in the store, who informed me that they were going to start giving the books away in a little while. I got the first copy of the book though i had to muscle out a little kid who was trying to get the first copy. (yeah very childish of me, but i was there first!!)

I spent the whole day reading the book and studiously avoiding human company because of the kill joys who went around announcing the end of the book.

I finished reading the book at 3:00 am. And i felt like i was saying good bye to a dear friend. I know i will read those books again, but it will never be the same.

So long harry, thanks for all those pleasurable hours spent following your journey.

No not Amitabh..i can only wish ..or for junior. Then again may be not.

My dull office life is perked up at times by work and others by people who work there, like the times i walk into the ladies restrooms to find some one weeping. It always amuses me to guess the reasons behind their distress.
My nearest neighbour is a gal, whom i caught shedding a couple of tears on her desk once. She and i are separated by a short glass partition between our desks. We get along well as in i look at my monitor, she hers and we smile at each other in case our eyes meet accidentally or i can ask her for change in case i desperately need change to pay the rickshaw guy. Which is all i hope for when someone is in ur peripheral vision all day

This peaceful balance has been disturbed by this new chap who has been working on her system this week. This guy is perpetually angry and is on the phone most of the time and in the throes of some serious argument. He speaks softly so i can't really make out the context of the argument but i am guessing he is arguing with his current/ex/soon to be ex lady love. I can feel the anger radiate from him and it is distracting and disturbing to be picking up so many negative vibes. Today his neighbour jokingly commented that he should really finish his conversations at home. i think that if he is going to be angry and arguing he should be loud enough so that i will at least have something to gossip about.

I learnt in school that "There is many a slip between the cup and the lip".
I love my friends, we just have so much fun. We are living examples of these wise words.
Something happened this morning and i could'nt resist posting it.

My best friend was updating me on a recent sms conversation she had with a guy she has been mildly(?) flirting with. They were discussing cooking and her cooking skills.
She: " So i sent him a message saying,
Wherever you shall go i will follow
And whatever you give I will swallow "
Me: [Chuckling]
She: "Why are u laughing?"
Me: "You said it wrong"
[Pause]
[Enlightenment]
She: " Oh My God, Noooooooo, i hope that's not what i sent!!!!!!"

Distressed she was cuz she meant " wherever you go i will follow, and whatever i give you will swallow", from the book "Men are like waffles and women are like spaghetti"

Rewind over a year back.
I was chatting with a dear friend of mine

Me: So what plans for the weekend?
He: Got sports bra plans
He: Woopsie.... *bar
Me: hee hee, i would'nt want the details...lol

Flashes of brilliance often end up in sheer stupidity. A couple of things happened to me which made me smile, cringe and question the existence of human intelligence at the same time.

The most recent of which involved me opening my monthly bill for my mobile phone. The first thing that caught my attention was that they had referred to me as Mrs!!! that dreaded three letter word made me cringe and not the fact that the bill was overcharging me. The congenial environment at home has been approaching war like status over the past couple of years to changes my status from Ms to Mrs. It's been fun resisting for the most part but at times the constant tug of war becomes a nag. I was told by customer care that it is a long process to change my title back from Mrs to Miss. So when that someone had wrongly entered the data onto their computer, it made a mockery of my struggle. Sigh...this will be a good laugh or is it a sign for changing times?

Here is one of the funniest and weirdest lines that a guy has used on me. So it was pretty obvious that the guy was trying to impress me and one day when i was escorting my neighbor's 3 year old son back to his house, we run into this guy. After the usual polite greetings, the guy obviously at a loss of things to say asks," is this your son?". Ahem, "yeah right and i got 3 more in the house screaming for milk".me and my friends had a good laugh over it and rest assured the guy never tried to talk to me after that incident.

I love technology.
I love the numerous inventions that make our lives simpler(?) /richer.
I love the mobile phones which makes us accessible anywhere/ anytime even when we want to be left alone.
I love computers that have reduced tonnes and tonnes to dusty files piled on our work station to miles and miles of entangled cables.
I love digital cameras that lets us shoot 1000's of pictures, are small enough to be stuffed in the pockets of our tightest pair of jeans and leave us with links from friends with 1000's of pictures with no description.
I love emails which let us keep in touch with so many people we'd not have kept in touch with otherwise and the tonnes of spam that comes with it.
I love the automatic faucets which work when u place our hands under them....but today i don't like them very much....there was power outage today and the restrooms apparently receive the least priority from the power back-ups...there is one emergency lamp which gives a twilight feel to the entire rest room..and the faucets don't work...so me and this other girl stood in the twilight awaiting dawn.

YES!!! YES!!! we made it!! Took us a test run just to learn where to go and how to get things done but we did it.

I guess all the whining paid off when a couple of guys in my office decided that they'd come along with me n Rads to Rishikesh and Haridwar. Nine of us were supposed to go but in the end there just the four of us.

Nothin like
*being sleep deprived and drinking beer at 7:00 am
*Watching the guys with us flinch and look at us accusingly when asked for their emergency contacts and made to sign a disclaimatory documents ( I swear they wanted to back out at that time).
* happily wading into the ganges with life jackets on and trying to swim in the ice cold water
*Jumping off the raft and floating beside it downstream.
*being told by the guide that the water is 60 feet deep!!!
*Floating on your back down the river
*swimming downstream and guiding the raft by pulling the string tied on ur hand.
*going thru rapids which almost toss one off the boat
*Then being told by the guide that there was a huge whirlpool there last week!!
*Paddling and listening to all the stories of the guide, brad Pitt had used his company when he came to india.
*Eating hot poori's, sabji and halwa at haridwar
*Watching the evening Aarthi there
*Being forced to listen to hindi songs which play only on road side tea shops.
* Getting so exhausted when we were back, that Rads missed her train cuz we overslept and the alarm was too tired to ring.
* Happily declaring that I've taken enough dips in the ganges for me n seven generations of my family.

SO check...everything was achieved in this trip. The rafting, the food, the fun!!

Love that lasts for ever, First love they say is the sweetest. Last night my heart was conquered again by my first love at Karim's.

Karim's is a restaurant open since 1913(?) and the forefathers of the family that owns the place used to be chef's in the Mughal Emperor's kitchen. Apparently butter chicken was invented here and the place has been mentioned in NGC.
We parked at CP and took a metro to chawdi bazaar. The station is the deepest that the Delhi metro has gone. Easy to believe since we had to go 4 floors up to reach the road. The stark contrast between the modern air conditioned metro station and the Old Delhi is the first thing that hit us. We took a rickety cycle rickshaw to Karim's. The ride took us along the boundaries of the Jamma Masjid. It is lovely to look at in the night. The places is pretty crowded even at 9:30 with traffic consisting of pedestrians and cycle rickshaws. The ambience makes you feel like you are in a different dimension.
We walked through a narrow alley to enter the world of Karim's.
Its not a formal dining place so you might end up sharing your table with a couple of other people. The waiter who served is the ultimate consultant. He decided how much, what we need to eat and in what sequence!!!! We deifinitely need to learn consulting skills from the guy and had a good time teasing the MBA's on taking pointers from him.

All the aroma's had triggered a massive appetite. But the waiter insisted on serving Raan first which has a 20 min wait and refused to serve us anything else. It was totally worth it. This was followed by sheek Kabab's where so soft and the chicken tandoori, just awesome. We had no space for the roti and shajahani chicken after that.

The Raan

One of the guys in our group managed to eat most of the Raan and only the bones was left when he was done. We bet that a goat is growing in his belly now.
To finish up our cullinary experience we had kheer. Which can not be missed, no matter how stuffed you are one has to absolutely eat this. It is thick kheer with broken rice which are chilled in small clay vessels, never tasted anything like it!!!

The Kheer


Karim's is a must place for all non-veg food lovers. There are a couple of options for the poor vegetarians who get mixed up with "masahaari's" too.
If you are there and confused about what to eat..just use the WC Inc (Waiter's Consulting Inc)
So yeah I love food.