Kholi No. 21

Before this 19th June, let me put the memories of those 59 days of 2013 in words which started on same day last year.

It was second visit to UK after almost one and half year from my last visit. This time assignment was only for two months and kind of vacation. J So I was really excited to meet old friends in London and colleagues in Staines. Bigger excitement was summer of UK, a perfect time for tourist! Among all these thought process I never thought or imagined about making new lifelong best friends.

So after some family moments at home in India, I took up a flight on 19th June early morning and landed in London on same day. I had to work all alone for a first week until one more colleague from Mumbai arrived for the same assignment. So as planned long back, I straightaway visited friends in the first weekend.

Start of new week and Sharath, a colleague from Mumbai office makes an entry in office. I saw him sitting on sofa while passing from main lobby; boyish hairstyle, fat but with 6 feet height. I actually felt like I am seeing myself in that sofa! ;) After some time we met "officially" through our manager and I was POC for him for everything as he was completely new to British Gas. By the way Sharath Kumar landed to client's place without bringing company laptop. Eventually that missing laptop became reason for our 'ROFL' moments everyday! Our conversation struck a chord right from the beginning, as we were quite similar in many ways. There were many striking moments from our first day conversation but I remember him calling someone as PMO (according to Sharath, he was equivalent to peon!) who was actually one of senior consultant! And I actually stopped him from making blunder and realised him about real designation of that "PMO". That was just a start of our golden days in UK.

We both were very lucky to get individual service apartment in one of the prime location of Staines. We really had super fun through out the week. So start of new week and we accidentally met one of our colleague Gowtham from Mumbai on Staines road. So let me put the exact conversation and incident here.

" 

(Sharath and me were walking back to hotel after office. Gowtham walking towards us from opposite side, he smiles at us. Out of courtesy we smiled back (Damn, why we smiled!))

Gowtham: "Hey!"

We: "Hey!"

Gowtham (looking at Sharath): "I am from Capgemini, Mumbai. I saw you there!"

Sharath(still smiling, with surprise like he found some hardcore fan from India): "Ohhhh... but I never saw you there!"

(He must be feeling like celeb!)

Gowtham: "Arrey, I sit beside that guy!"

Sharath(with eyes in sky, trying hard to remember, still not able to remember):"Ohhh yeah, I saw you!"

(Meanwhile I was completely blank, thinking Sharath surely doesn’t remember anything.)

Gowtham(changing his facial expression and now with little worrisome face, looking at Sharath and Me): "Actually... I am in HUGE trouble guys." (And I heard him saying, he is huge trouble! J)

Me (with little worried face, now that was genuine):"Why? What happened?"

Gowtham: "I am suffering from bad stomach ache. I had appendix operation before coming here."

Sharath(little tensed): "Ohhhh man, where are you staying?"

Gowtham: "Anne Boleyn Hotel, and I can't cook over there and have to eat hotel food.... spicy...."

(He started making some weird expression. I was also suffering from stone pain that time and understood his pain more than mine! Now Sharath and me completely worried about this small, little colleague of ours.)

Me (with compassion in my eyes): "Don't worry, we prepare food by our own and you can have dinner with us! What do you say Sharath?"

(Sharath was already feeling of his "fan"'s pain)

Sharath: "Yes yes... of course!"

Gowtham(suddenly with bright eyes and big smile on face): "When can I come to your place tonight?"

Me and Sharath: "7:30"(Thats when we used to start cooking, we both thought that this guy will at least help us in cooking. That is how our conversion ended with bye bye and exchange of contact numbers and some telugu talk between Gowtham and Sharath.)

"

After that we reached our room. Right at 7:30 I went to Sharath's flat and we both started cooking for 3 persons. At 7:45 Sharath made a call to Gowtham to ask whether he is coming or not?!?! Gowtham replied, he’d be at our place in 5 minutes and those 5 minutes ended after 45 minutes at 8:30 when dinner was cooked and ready to serve. He made an entry. Sharath and me welcomed him with quite a look! First I thought, "Yes, saale se bartan wash karvaunga" but then realised we had dishwasher! L

And this is how Mr. Gowtham became friend of ours. Meanwhile one of our gang members Prajakta Shringarpure was already in Staines and spent some moments from precious time of hers. After few more days, one more entry to our gang and that was of Dhwani Shah, again from Mumbai! So that was our gang of Kholi No. 21; Sharath, Dhwani, Gowtham, Prajakta and I! J Moreover my parents also visited UK for that one month.

Next 4 weeks were full on laughter riot, with so-called 'ROFL' and 'Bestest' moments! We also had one 'visiting faculty' Resho Pingle a friend of Praji and later also friend of all of us. It is simply impossible to describe so many special incidents and moments we spent together here in detail. So let me just highlight as much as possible here through words and photos.

First time I, in fact all of us saw a man actually "rotating on floor laughing". That tasty Raita every evening by Dhwani, late night 'Gupshup' in front of beautiful river Thames, that 'SRK' moments ;), ‘Apne pair pe kulhadi marna’, fighting for Ice-cream, shouting in office with Sharath and Dhwani, lunch in office with Praji, Sharath and Dhwani, dairy-milk after every lunch, my interesting encounters with security head at office, curries without tomato and potato for almost a month, forgetting mobile at bench in the rain by Praji, bunking office early to visit Windsor castle, that rain and skipping rocks on sea water and super slippery and risky climbing at Durdle Door and 'Maje lete hue Seagulls' with Praji's almost crying face, beautiful Peak District and Cave, that shouting and racing in small town of Castleton, double rainbow, crazy night-out in London(I missed most of it), becoming jumping jacks in Stonehenge, one of the oldest Cathedral of Salisbury, wonderful beach of Bournemouth, spending complete silent moments enjoying and feeling the amazing nature at Isle of Wight, driving along the seashore, stopping a car at random place by the road and getting down to random beach, and finally visiting lake district with so many adventures, playing "dumb charades" late till mid-night, kind of trekking, sitting in the middle of green mountain,  car tire puncture, driving a car with that for almost 8 kilometers and after much of a bargaining spending night in small bar cum hotel with 10 pounds each in village called Gosforth, and visiting our last destination the Wast Water and witnessing amazing, unprecedented beauty of Lake District. Phew… J

Oops, how can I forget the real ROFL moment, when I dedicated a song from film Guzaarish to Sharath, "Ke Tera Zikr Hai... Ya Itr Hai..." and that man to whom this song was dedicated! :D

I am sure we all have permanent frame of pictures in our memory for all of these moments. Thank you so much Kholi No. 21 for giving lifelong friendship and memories. 

P.S. Gowtham, please get up from the floor and stop laughing now! J

Memories...

Memories...

Something which makes us happy, sometimes cry, sometimes laugh, sometimes nostalgic; yes that is what memories all about. Memories always get you in some or other downpour of feelings. 

So how do you remember something? If you think about your memories passed through out all your lifespan, what comes to your mind, still images and recorded videos? Whenever I remember any incident, I find my mind with few still images! :) 

I am more attracted towards still images than recorded videos. I think photos hold “that moment feeling”, anytime you watch photos and you live that moment and that feeling. So I love capturing photos of everything else but myself! I have hell loads of photos in my unlimited storage hard disk what you know as brain and yes, of course on my USB drive as well, but sometimes our brain takes longer than usual or sometimes some of it parts gets spoiled and you forget these beautiful memories!

For this, we have got blessings from science, one of the most beautiful gifts from science called Camera. In this digital world you can click as many times as you want with Digital Camera! And I am making full use of my digital camera by capturing all kind of stuffs. Photography has always attracted me and that is why it is my first hobby. Here are some of my memories…

 

                                    

   

  

 

 

 

I'll post few more photos in coming blogs and will come back with another downpour of memories!

Missing India

10^th December 2011

10:46 PM 

Currently I am in Staines, UK staying with three Bengali friends. I am here from last three months for my work. This blog is all about how did I find this place so far.

Staines, beautiful small town in south west of London, situated at the bank of the river Thames, colored with English culture. The first word come to my mind about Staines is small but beautiful!

London, what should I say about this city! This city is one of the most famous, and historical places in the world. You will find all kind of people here from all different parts of the world (Asian, African, European, American… ), Belonging to different religions of the world (Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jews, Buddhist and many others). This city has huge network of Tube (local train like our Metro rail in Delhi J).

When I was told that, I am going to UK for six months. I had mix feeling for leaving home and my country India but got a chance to see other parts of the world. Little sad, little excited!

Finally I arrived here at World's busiest airports by international passenger traffic Heathrow, London on 22^nd February 2011.

During my UK stay, I saw places here and I missed India like anything. I never imagined myself longing for India like this! That freedom, that oneness, those people, that “MY” feeling. I am missing INDIA badly. L

Today India has almost everything what other developed countries have. Yeah we may have some broken roads and may have more numbers of poor people and may be far behind in terms of cleanliness. But we are far ahead in one aspect that is Corruption! ;) But then what we got?

We got really good infrastructure (now, yeah after 64 years of independence, but we got it, and yeah definitely we need improvements!), best educational institutes, better and cheap medical facilities, best businessmen in the world, good transportation facilities (I do not expect AC trains or bullet train all over the country!), good communication facilities, one of the biggest cinema industry in the world and many more...

But what other countries don’t have is, our rich culture, our rich past, our education (yeah, I believe that we have better educational system, just one thing we need to improve is that we need to ease the pressure on the students.), our cheerful youth, and our spirituality (I am not talking about any religion, I am talking about meaning behind every religion, Spirituality). I saw a huge difference in terms of youth here and in India. Our youth is far more responsible and more progressive. 

Anyway we are still progressing and with that we also need to stick to our culture...

I am just missing India! L

Mumbai meri jaan...

Yeah!!! I know there are hundreds of articles and blogs on India's entertainment capital Mumbai! But this blog is all about my experience with Mumbai. So here we go...

Before I came to Mumbai for the first time, of course I heard lot about this great city, about the traffic, rain, local train, marine drive, polluted juhu beach, and lot more... Surely my mind has drawn a picture (actually a terrible picture!) of Mumbai with the brush of my imaginations. So with that terrible picture I reached Mumbai by Train. My friends, with whom I was supposed to share a flat, instructed me to get down at Dadar station.
Actually once I came to Mumbai when I was a kid, and I knew there are lots of local stations in Mumbai. So the moment, train reached at Borivalli at early morning. My anxiety started and I was looking at all the station's name with an eagle eye(I was wearing spectacles, that is my eagle eye!). Finally after half an hour  my train reached to Dadar. I was all ready to face the challenges of Mumbai. I hired the famous black and yellow taxi(my company was going to pay so I was not worried about fare! ;) ) of Mumbai. I was supposed to reach at Airoli, Navi Mumbai. I thought that as name suggests Navi Mumbai must be a very good NEWLY developed area, and would have nice locality and tall buildings and so on. Yeah, another picture of NAVI MUMBAI with my imaginations, but the thing was this picture was really good one!!! Anyway, I reached Airoli and saw those old tenements whose color was green due to those dirty green fungus on the wall, and that REAL picture of Airoli, Navi Mumbai broke the UNREAL picture of my imaginative Navi Mumbai!

That house was really horrible, but still I stayed there for two days as I had no other option on hand. I decided after two days that, I am not going to stay here at all! I told my friends that we are an SAP consultants man, we can't stay in this antique house. We'll search a new flat. But as I stayed there for two days, owner was not willing to leave me easily even I was ready to pay for those two days! Anyway my friend Manish came to rescue and had fight with that owner and I finally left that fungus full and stinking house. As there was no other option on hand, I stayed to my one of the oldest and best friend Parth's flat. From the other day, me and my friends Manish and Sahir(Junior Colleagues :) ) started searching for flat in Airoli. But surprise surprise... that day we all came to know, we are criminals! How? because we were "bachelors"!!! (I used "were" only for me, my two friends "are" still bachelors! ;)) Wherever we go and ask for flat on rent, the first thing people said, "No Bachelors, only married couple or family". What the hell! Bachelors are criminals or what? And very first time we all understood the value of "wife" in our "life"!

Anyhow my past life's good "karma" helped us, and finally we found one really good flat(there are no "quotation" so it was really nice flat! :)) after continues efforts of 15 days. Finally we shifted to our brand new really good flat and I started living with my new roommates Mr. Manish Hadiyel and Mr. Sahir Vhora.

Our flat was quite near to the office campus and we had company bus also, so we did not need to use any public transport. Due to this reason, even after staying in Mumbai, we were not actually living Mumbai!

Even my office team was good too, Mahesh(ganni uncle), Amol(bottle), Rajasekhar(paper), PradeepA(mota), Abhishek(ravan)! I am writing this at the moment and I can't stop myself laughing hard remembering those days. It was full on fun in office. I felt like, I was living the college life!

And at home, after staying few days with my roommates, I was sure that Mumbai life is going to be full fun, laughter riot and unforgettable. I tell you, Manish and Sahir are the guys with whom no one can stay low. These guys rocked our home by their funny jokes and masti. One more interesting characters became our very good friend was Mr. Dev! He was teammate of Sahir, but he mixed up with us so well and he was damn humorous. In fact, we all were humorous. Apart from me, everyone had amazing ingenuity which makes you roll on the floor laughing like anything and I am like Navjotsingh Sidhu, who can't stop laughing once started. The only difference between me and Sidhu is, I do not act and I actually laugh! :) And of course how can I forget Rajbhai and Varun too! Oh my... I am just remembering that time and my heart is filled with full of joy and happiness.

Now after these laughter riot weekdays, here is weekend. My fiancée-Darshana was also in Mumbai that time. :)))) But but but... she was staying in Goregaon East, which was almost 30 KM from my place. Travel from Airoli, Navi Mumbai to Goregaon East was real test of mine in Mumbai! I had to take auto from my home to Airoli Station, get a local for Thane, from there Dadar, from there Goregaon Station and from there take an auto to my fiancee's place! Woohhh... It was real test of mine! Initially I was feeling real hard. Eventually I found BEST bus direct to Goregaon. Anyhow slowly I started loving the local trains. Of course I was travelling for my fiancee, so I would definitely love any damn ride. But still there was something that, I started loving about local trains. Once during Navaratri, I was travelling at 12:30 in the night towards Thane. You can't even imagine the crowd at Dadar station. It gives you an impression that, its just 7 in the evening! There was not enough space to stand even in the train. I thought, this city REALLY never sleeps!

I visited almost all famous places of the city like Mahalaxmi Temple, Haji Ali Dargah, Gate of India, Hotel Taj, BSE, Marine Drive, Juhu Beach, Gorai Beach, Bandstand Bandra, Elephanta Caves. It was such a great fun travelling by local trains, BEST, Taxis and visiting all these places. All are such a beautiful place! And even some Mumbai special snacks are also mouth watering. I loved specially misal-pav. Above all I loved Manish's Bhaji-Pav. We still tell him that, buddy you are in wrong career. He should be chief chef at 5-star hotel.

I am simply in love with this city. And again that imaginative picture of Mumbai broke, and wonderful unimaginative picture of Mumbai got place in my heart instead of my mind!

Definitely, it is not easy to live in Mumbai, you need to be ruff & tuff, but Mumbai is the city where you would love to live hard!

My Amdavad!

We all love our home town. The place where we are born and brought up, where we passed our precious childhood playing in the streets, where we stepped in to real world of challenges, obstacles, success, and failure from our imaginary dreamy world of thoughts. I too love my lovely home town and that's my pride possession Amdavad (Ahmedabad)! The metro city and one of the biggest city of India. Amdavad is in the Gujarati language.

Whenever I think of Amdavad, one word comes to mind is "Aho!". Aho in sanskrit means "How wonderful this is!" Aho is expression of amazement and satisfaction.

I'll take you through small historical information of Amdavad. It was founded in 1411 by Sultan Ahmed Shah. "Jab kutte pe sassa aya, tab badshah ne shaher basaya!" This is how we know Amdavad. This city is basically divided, by the river Sabarmati, in to two parts Navu(New) and Junu(Old) Amdavad. Old Amdavad is famous for its heritage architectural history like Sidi Saiyad ni Jali, Julta Minara, Tran Darwaja, Jama Masjid(Mosque) etc. and New Amdavad is famous for its modern multiplexes, shopping malls and parks. 

There are some top ranked educational institutes like IIM, CEPT, NID, MICA, Nirma University situated in Amdavad.
Why I love most Amdavad is because of incomparable mouth-watering taste and variety of vegetarian food. I would say, it is heaven for vegetarian people. Honest's Pavbhaji, Vijay's vadapav, Karnavati's dabeli, Charbhuja's sandwich and Sankalpa's dosa and panipuri on every cross road! Yummy Yummmm! What else you want man! How can I forget Khadiya na Bhajiya and Das's Khaman! Here sitting in Kerala - 'God's own country', this is what I am missing badly my foodie Amdavad. If you go out on weekends, all Amdavadis will be out to enjoy and eat all kinda foods. You would get "houseful" board outside every restaurant. We amdavadi may found talking about hygiene at home but when we go to any cross road, surely we eat that Bhaiya's PaniPuri with extra masala in it! :-) 

Amdavadis enjoy each and every festivals with full enthusiasm, specially it's famous for Uttrayan. Whole Amdavad stays on terrace for two days 14th and 15th January, and we are really crazy for Uttrayan. Diwali time all gujjus prepare hundreds types of snacks and sweets at home and exchange with each other with love.

Another thing I've never seen in any other city, I have been, is that, Amdavad is really safe in terms of roaming at nights. You'll easily find an alone lady roaming at night 11 or 12 in Amdavad. Nowhere else it is possible.  Really Amdavad has its own style! After staying out of Amdavad for long time, just thought of Amdavad is enough to turn me on!

Amdavad has been passed through tremendous changes through out the time span. Wherever you go in the world, you never get that "Aho" except Amdavad.

Love you Amdavad and now in the land of Rice - Kerala, miss you most!

Valia...

Hmmm... After reading the title "Valia...", many of you must be thinking, what's this "Valia"? Perhaps you may get thought of the famous robber "Valio Lutaro", who later turned to sage Valmiki and wrote a great hindu scripture "The Ramayan", but it's nothing to do with that.
So, first of all let me introduce "Valia"; "It is a small town, actually taluka(part of district) of district Bharuch in south part of one of the most developing state of the India; Gujarat. It is just a village like other lacs of villages of India.
But why I am writing blog on particular this village? Because this is the village, where one of the WORST engineering college (infrastructure wise, or education wise or take any other parameter on which you can rate any college!) "Valia Institute of Technology"(VIT), where I and many like me (who could not get admission in other good engineering colleges of Gujarat! ;-) ) became engineers, better I use the word "WARRIOR" instead of engineer. After reading this, all "Valians" must be laughing. But you know what, I believe whatever I learned in Valia, I would not learn any best college of Gujarat ever. The word "Valian", I am using because I really believe that who passed out of valia, can study and pass in any damn best college in the world! Perhaps, you must be thinking, "kuch jyada bol diya maine!". No, I really believe that. In any good college, you get good  education, good infrastructure, good mentors, good environment to study and you may become scholars, what's big deal in that? But here each valian studies by their own, keep some of rare good lecturer beside, and here it is not end. The most important part is, VIT belongs to the "Veer Narmad South Gujarat University"(SGU), where if you pass without getting any ATKT, you are the ranker! :-)
I still remember my 3rd semester's result, as I was DtoD student, it was my first exam result in SGU, I got four ATKTs! That was first time, I tried to know full form of ATKT(Allow To Keep Term)! But you know what, still I was smiling and not that much ashamed of myself as there were many carrying six and even seven ATKTs out of just six subjects (six theory + one practical = 7)!!!!! "Hai na kamaal"... Now you must got a clear vision why I use the word warrior! :-)

Keep studies apart, there was nothing like college management, and there was no support what so ever by college management to organize any damn curricular activities! The "Valians", who take initiative to organize annual function or cricket tournament or days or navaratri garba, to make college life colorful and interesting. Here we learned, how to get things done without any real support!

I had never traveled in the Jeep before, hanging with other 12 people and 17 other seating in the same jeep! lolzzz... I learned to adjust with smile on face with the situation and people when you do not have many options!

Perhaps, we would never learn such things if we could get into good college where college bus service is available. So I love Valia because it gave me opportunity to learn a lot and lot many things which I could never learn by staying in my comfort zone. Valia really stretched my limits, got me out of my comfort zone and gave me confidence and strength to fight against all bad things. Most of valians must be thinking like, valia has just spoiled their lives. I am not sure about that. But there must be many many valians must be cheering that part of life as a golden part!

Valia was the best part of my life. What a life it was!

College days!

I know, after reading the title "College Days!", most of us are feeling sense of happiness and joy and satisfaction at deep in our heart for that beautiful life... Probably now there is big smile on your face... Just a thought of college is enough to turn us on!


Yeah, those days were amazing and beautiful and probably BEST days of everyone's life. There were a unlimited fun and joy and love and fights and "masti" and "hungama" with titbit of study with everyone dreaming of graduation 'successfully' one fine day.

We all think like, we are in college now and we are enough mature to understand the reality of world, life and all relations, but till I believe, there is bit of maturity and still more innocency in us. Most of us never know, when are we going to get so attached with our 'best' friend that you can't bear to get apart and we fall in one beautiful feeling called 'Love'.

In context of love, everyone of us might be coming under one of this category; "We are here to make girlfriend/boyfriends" or "We are here just to make best and good friends" or "No opposite sex friend", and I believe most of people fall in first two categories, fall in love and decide to get marry to their love one during or after college days. Here I remember the slogan of super hit hindi movie "Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na". It says "So when do you know it's love?". So it happens with us too! Then struggle to make you parents and society understand and so on...

Whenever I feel a bit down, I switch on my laptop and watch College days photos and videos and cheris those moments. There is nothing else to make me happy!

If we get a chance to go back to past, then I am sure, we all will love to live that wonderful life again and again.

Ohhh... it's meeting time! Bbye for now! ;-)