An extraordinary Lunch

This Sunday's lunch was really extraordinary, not that the food was blissful or the restaurant environment was out of this world, it was just something else. If you are thinking that we prepared food at flat, then that too is not a correct guess. The story goes like this.

PROLOGUE
It was a nice sunny sunday afternoon. The time was around 3:30 pm. We (me and my flat mates) were all set to go for lunch. We chose to go to a nearby nice restaurant for lunch named Dev's. We reached there, made ourselves comfortable and ordered our food. The food was about to be served in 5 min, but suddenly there was a twist in the story, one of my room mate -Vishal stood up and said I would take a full 'thali' today which precisely means 'unlimited food at fixed cost'. Not only that, he also suggested a restaurant 'Rajdhani' in Kalyani Nagar which fulfilled all the criterias thought of for that lunch. At that moment we didn't had slightest idea of how things could turn up. At Dev's we said we wanted some chinese soups which you don't have to offer, so we will move out of here, The attendent was definitely irritated, as he had already made an order for our food.

THE STORY

After this extraordinary idea was proposed, we accepted hesitatingly, all were hungry, the clock was already showing 3:45. We came back home to take our bikes and then we proceeded for Kalyani Nagar. When we reached Adlabs in Kalyani Nagar we climbed to second floor for Rajdhani and what we found was voilla!! the restaurant was closed. One last bartender was leaving from the restaurant at that time, conforming to us this devastating news. We said OK! we will go to a restaurant in front of Adlabs, Kalyani Veg. We took our seats in the restaurant for the second time in the day with clock now ticking to 4:10 in the afternoon. We called out for the waiter for ordering food only to hear that 'there is no lunch available, sir'. All were dying out of hunger, but a lot more was about to come.

We then took the second hard decision of the day to go to Koregaon Park for restaurant 'The Food ' . This was already our 4th restaurant for the day. And this also brought disappointment number four as this restaurant was also closed. We then took of for 'Chutneys' in Dhole Patil Road, we were very much sure that we'll not get disappointed from there. Reaching there, unfortunately, we found that the result was no different then from the previous restaurants. The attendant said, sir! at this time no lunch, you can only get 'SNAX'. But there was noone to tell us that this would be a very wise decision, meanwhile we were hell bent on getting a 'full thali'. We then looked for Karim's, to get the same response. Finallly we reached Kukoo's, where to our relief the attendant said that we can get lunch. This was not all as there were some constraints namely:
1) The restaurant was not offering 'full thali'.
2) It was a non air conditioned restaurant, which was again one of the demands of the day by Vishal, my roommate.
3) One of my flatmate-Robin suggested one more restaurant in Deccan,Panchvati which fulfilled above two criterias.
    By this time we already had traversed 8 restaurants and now we were to move to Deccan as according to Robin we will definitely get a nice Gujrati 'full thali' at 'Panchvati' and he was at that time 200 percent sure about this. Clock now showing 4:55, not sure if it was still afternoon or evening had arrived! We took our third bad decision of the day and the karavan now moved towards Deccan. The results were no different at Panchvati and then the came in queue was restaurant Vaishali, then Amrapali,then ......
Clock was now showing 6:15, now this was definitely evening, we somehow convinced ourselves that it was still afternoon. The demands had to change and it did changed to ' We will eat anything, anywhere'. Our friend from Mumbai -Gaurav learnt the biggest lesson of his life-'not to forget to bring tiffin from Mumbai,when heading to Pune, specially for Lunch'. He asked in frustration 'where' is KFC?, I meekly replied it is at the mall just beside our home. He was furious and then immediately left for KFC with Vishal, the major culprit for today's lunch debacle. When the discussion was over it was around 6:30 in 'EVENING' and then Ankush suggested one tiffin center in Deccan where we could get 'SNAX', the remaining four people were now drudging towards the tiffin center. We reached there and ordered 'Chole Bhature'. I was too hungary to be satiated by only one plate of gigantic 2 Bhatures. I ordered one more, and it was the most fulfilling 'LUNCH' in days, many many days.

We reached back to 'ghar', got to bed - to wake up the next morning with a lesson at our disposal.

        ******** THE END  ********

A Reminiscience

Today we went to Gayatri's place.Ohh forgot to mention we means Ankush,Priti,Chenthil and me. Gayatri's grandmother was expired. Gayatri was quite upset.The atmosphere at her place was quite heavy. Just sitting at that place my mind wandered back to time of my father's death. I dont have very clear memory of that place called Doyang, in Nagaland. I did my initial primary classes there at that remote place.
Unlike all other things at that place, the day of my fathers death is so very fresh in my mind. It never goes, how hard i try. All the events on that day of 20 May 1995 comes like a motion picture to mind with utmost clearity. I clearly remember each moment of that day, memory of each moment of that day pains like anything. I dont know why i am writing all this, but even while writing all this, each moment is so heavy with those painful memory,which never fades.
Today also it seems like that all that happened just yesterday only,still sometimes i feel that some day he will walk up to the door and i will run up into his arms and grasp him so hard that he can never ever leave me again. That body of him, those burning flames, those ashes never goes away from mind.
    Life was forcefully turned into some unknown direction, never to comeback again. today also i feel that my own personality of today might be very much different in case he was there..entire meaning of life would have changed.. everything would have been different.. so very very different

BUSY DAYS AT OFFICE

Last few days in the office were quite busy and hectic and it is likely to be very busy for the next may be a month. This Documentum Purge thing- our new Workflow Component for the project is really getting into our heads. Issues in it seems to be endless with no visible ending, although it is moving to production mid - April.
Anyways I am enjoying these busy times at office.
    I am really wondering how much time can change a person, last year, may be around same time of the year I was cursing myself for why the hell on earth I have joined an IT company. That day and today, at 3 oClock in the morning what is coming to my mind is this Documentum Purge thing. And what more I am not hating it. Last year I was seriously thinking of quitting IT at the earliest available opportunity, but now I dont have any such plans. May be I have started liking it with time or I have adjusted with time to like it. Both ways its good for me.
   The special thing about IT is that you have to keep on learning every time, continously and there are endless challenges everytime. The more time you spend without doing anything new, more you get concerned. for yourself. Your knowledge does not take long to get outdated. Ohhh I now realize i am wandering away from the topic.....
  Getting back to busy times at office, over the year's time now we have developed a pattern of spending our day at office. It will start with the breakfast and the news paper and then on to reading mails and then some work. Around 1 to 1:30 pm we have lunch. Priti calls me and ankush and then Gayatri joins in.She has a peculiar choice of vegetables, which i never really appreciate.During lunch we use to talk about the bad food at canteen, about some of the beautiful girls in the office -- how they are looking on that day and all, and midway ankush will take a cooking session for priti, always comming up with a new dish and horrifying Priti. Gayatri did well to say that she doesn't cook which avoided her a seperate cooking session from Ankush.
    Its always good to have a group at office and I too have a nice group of four. Although it would reduce to three in coming days as Gayatri is moving onsite. We do talk about all kind of non-sense stuffs during lunch and tea times. Our ability to talk non-sense really amazes me. The thing is all four of us like such gossips.
After lunch we will go for a walk at the parking area and more non-sense will evolve. The discussion ranges from marriage plans to business plans and we dont limit the possibilities in any of the discussion, which creates a good room for creating endless non-sense.
        We use to take tea at around 4 to 4:30 pm. During tea Chenthl also joins in and more gossip starts.
God how would be this world without idle gossips?
        Comming back to my desk, I am blessed to have cricket lovers around my desk as I myself is a cricket maniac.Talking about cricket these days IPL is going on. I am supporting Mumbai Indians. Mosin, one of my neighbour from Bangalore is ofcourse supporting Royal Challengers Bangalore and Arun from Chennai is supporting Chennai Super Kings We use to have so much disscussion and arguments about every match featuring these teams that I think even the news channels are not disscussing so much as we are doing. One day one of the person will get upset for his team's loss and other day some one will be overjoyed for his team's win. These discussion take up our considerable time at office.
    And how can I not write about Ranjan. We have several things in common, first is we are from the same great project: JAWS, both of us like listening music in the office very much and both of us are single. Having so much in common we are bound to have a good time at office, again we use to discuss about so many things.One thing that differs is that he is a very good dancer and my situation at dancing is just little above pathetic. He has a peculiar way of saying things.He has given some very popular dialogues one of them being "Join me in Congratulating...."
            With all these stuffs and other things how the day passes, i dont even realize. Sleep is now creeping into my eyes,so have to put a halt to this blog.
Happy Blogging.

My Favourite Quote's !!!!!

"Love is a long journey of Care, Trust and understanding each other"

 “When I Asked God for Strength
He Gave Me Difficult Situations to Face

When I Asked God for Brain & Brown
He Gave Me Puzzles in Life to Solve

When I Asked God for Happiness
He Showed Me Some Unhappy People

When I Asked God for Wealth
He Showed Me How to Work Hard

When I Asked God for Favors
He Showed Me Opportunities to Work Hard

When I Asked God for Peace
He Showed Me How to Help Others

God Gave Me Nothing I Wanted
He Gave Me Everything I Needed.”

                                 

The Journey not the Arrival matters !!
                                           T.S. Eliot
I regret often that I have spoken; not that I have been silent -
                                                                          Syrus
Let me tell you something my friend.Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.
                                                                           from movie Shawshank Redemption

Twice I did good, but that I heard never .. Once I
did bad and that was all I heard forever .."

Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue...

will complete this later.....