The past (fast) week

Its hard to believe that I've been here almost a week. Time has really flown
by.

Actually we hit the ground running, so three hasn't been much down time
since I left. The flight itself was quite boring. Watched a total of 3
movies, which I can't even remember - thats how memorable they were! The
KL-Bangalore leg was the worse (than Sydney-KL), I think only becasue sleep
was at a premium and the quality of the service and amenities quite low.

In any case we made it unscathed, except for some lack of sleep. The first
thing I noticed was that even in the early morning, while traffic was scarce
the drive still never reached past 60kph. Surprising, but then I guess the
traffic is never used to travelling at anything past that, so despite the
chance, cars still prefer to crawl.

On Monday morning, my first course of business was to get my sim. To obtain
a sim one needs offical proff of a local address, and a photo and so on. Due
to that, my cousin now has about 3 or 4 sims under his name, but doesn't
keep a phone!

Its actually been raining here ever since we landed. The norm is for clear
skies and pleasant weather, but in the evenings we actually need to wear
trackies to survive! Its very close to a Sydney autumn. The worst thing,
though is the rain. Or rather drizzle. It starts and stops whenever, and due
to the great state of the roads, most places are afflicted by slush and
garbage.

The roads actually are really bad. The water makes it worse. When its good
its real good, but otherwise the place is a mess. To add to the problem,
planning is a mess, and "encroachment" also plays a part. The end result is
litigation to resolve the crisis, even to build or repair a small inside
road.

We visited Srirangapatnam on Wednesday (? - days are a mush!). We have a
family home there, dating back a coupl of hundred years, which is always a
great place to visit. The town used to be within the fort of kings such as
Haider Ali and Tippu Sultan. It lies next to the Cauvery River and is quite
famous for the Ranganathaswamy Temple.

Anyways, also did some shopping and so on, and things for the wedding are in
full swing.

Hopefully will be able to post some pics later...

my ph no

+91 9945 322 908

This is it...

So the end and the beginning is here...I'm off...

Don't really have much else to say...just look for random stuff and pics...and leave comments...

Later!

So where will I be?

I thought initially, that I would have a little map of India and when you click on a city or town, then you can find the day I may be there....but thats a little to techie for my liking, and I don't really have the time to research and look into it and develop it etc...

So you'll have to suffice for the cheaper List of places and times. And manually look it up. So 20th century!

Here goes:

November
- land in Bangalore on the 20th of Nov

December
- Sunita & Judge get married on the 5th
- fly Colombo on the 9th for a reception on the 10th
- fly out of Colombo on 0345 flight to Chennai for Mahesh and Shruti's wedding
- 11th night, Rahul and I catch the Sethu Express to Rameshwaram
- 13th we leave for Kanyakumari
- 15th we leave KK for Mumbai...

We set up camp here for a couple of weeks, after which I train it to Ahmedabad, and the rest of the fam leave for Bangalore on the way back home.

January
- The rough sketch so far looks as though I'll be spending Jan around Gujurat and Rajasthan. I'm not certain of dates although it may be that I spend two weeks in each state.

February, March & April
- By the start of Feb I want to be in Sidhbari, tucking in to a hot chai (they are unbelieveable up there!!)
- During this time, I hope to see a couple of places on tours people maybe doing but I highly doubt it. I'll settle for anything.

May & June
- If you thought the itinerary previous to this was spaced out, then this is more so. All I know is I want to cover the north, right through to Srinagar (sounds better, and less terrifying than mentioning Kashmir), Amritsar, Chardham, Agra, Khajurao, Varanasi, Konark and Kerala...

July
- Home?
- Sounds hectic I know, but will definately be worth the experience. i guess stay tuned for any updates later on.

...

The stars are aligning

A nice rant on the Australia v Uruguay play off by (my mate) Andrew Dahdal...

Well my Friends,

Its been a week of intrigue.

First - Uruguan officials complained about the fact that a trio of belgium refs would be officiating the return leg in sydney, as this might be biased because belgium is neighbours with Holland - the nationality of coach Guus hiddink - bit of stretch. FIFA flately refused to hear anything about it!!! Good on you FIFA, you uncorruptable icon of all that is fair and just.

Well, as this complaint was being made a certain spanish ref sent off 2 players from a turkich club fenabache in the UEFA Cup. This same spansih ref was meant to ref the Turkey/Switzerland world cap playoff in 2 weeks. "Fearing for his safety" FIFA decided to switch his game, appointing the Spanish refs to the Australia/Uruguay Games. For those who dont know THE LANGUAGE OF URUGUAY IS SPANISH!!!!!!!!!! If its biased to have refs from countries that neighbour coaches countries.....how about refs that share direct lingual and cultural ties with one of the teams. In the off field battle Urugay has out witted us again. FIFA is addiment that they have not made the decision based on any Uruguan pressure or requests. Fucking FIFA corrupt bastards. The only reason Australia has to be in a playoff in the first place is because south America didnt like losing half a spot in the qualifiers.....What about CONCACAF (Nth and central America) they get 3 and a half spots for like 7 teams!!!!! - that means we will have either trinidad and tobago or Bahrain in the world cup but potentially not Australia or Uruguay. GO FIGURE!!!

In more Uruguian treachery - they have requested for a second time that the kick of time for the first leg be changed again. They first went from 5pm to 9pm in hope of getting Australia to miss their return flight to Sydney - we'll MR John ONeil and his corporate buddies are on top of it. QANTAS has agreed to charter a flight for the socceroos out of Montevideo shortly after the end of the match. About time corportate Australia started to pull its own weight (yeah i know its all good PR for QANTAS and im helping the whole thing by plugging them - but im just glad!). Well this ploy is perhaps going to backfire. Urguay is now struggling to find a flight to sydney after the game and they want to change the match back to 5pm. Ofcourse FIFA wont allow it. Or will theyu. Shit i wouldnt be suprised if Australia shows up to the Stadio Centario and are told sorry u missed the game and you lost 6-2 - you better hurry up the first half has alreay kicked off in sydney.....stoopid FIFA.

Australia has set up base in Argentina. Argentina being the arch nemisis of Uruguy they were more than happy to oblige. It kind of reminds me of Rocky 3 where Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers - the former enemy of rocky - klike argentina in 93 for australia) turns around and helps their former foe to overcome an even dirtier and more insiduious villian.

Looking at the form Guide - Viduka has hit top gear with a double for Borough in the UEFA cup 3-1 win over a Ukrainian opponent. KEwel is making some appearances for Liverpool and was said to have set up a goal for Cisse in the Champions league - although on seeing it - it looked more like a miskick - we'll take anything as long as it leads to a goal against.

As for Uruguay - Diego Forlan has ripped a calf muslce and is said to miss the playoffs. i was so happy when i heard that - and not even feeling guilty for being happy and a fellow humans misfortune - i messaged every friend i could to rejoice. Them my brother told me that ive been suckered.....do we all remember Dario Silva's supposed injury for the first leg last time - then he shat on us the in the second leg - could a similar conspiracy be brewing here. The smart money is on Forlan making a miraculous recovery for the second leg in sydney. Nevertheless his club is the one that announced his injury and even said that he might not be available even for the Man U champions league game they have on the 22nd. Go Figure?! I had another one of my Urugauy dreams last night......same as some of my friends and family have been having ......in this one i saw Guus as a casual teacher at my old school and i rushed over to him and he thought i wanted to shake his hand but i slapped it away and screamed something like "DONT YOU KNOW FORLAN IS FAKING"......needless to say i had to dragged away from him and woke up a bit unsettled.

All in all the stars are slowly aligning .......lets home the southern cross is able to out shine a brilliant Uruguanian sun!!!!

Stay tuned.......

Can't wait.

Festival of Lights, Parade of Sweets

The NY Times on the delights of Diwali...

This whole last week

This whole last week has been quite random...on Monday, I was back till 8, working my ass of, which was great, cos I got a lot done...Tuesday, I paid the price...I had a violent head ache and stayed home, to enjoy the Melbourne Cup on a 68cm pre-curser-to-the-plasma tv. I didn't even know whch horses I drew out of the sweep. The damn donkeys didn't even get anywhere near the top 3, and I think one even gave up well before the line and simply trotted home.

That day was also Diwali. I did go to the Ashram for bhajans etc, and it was fun, cos its probably the last time I'll indulge myself at a puja there.

So then on Wednesday, my emotional roller coaster picked up again, only becasue I finally told the rest of the team of my resignation. I think everyone was like whatever, but quickly returned to a fake face of "Oh my God" etc after a couple of seconds. The entire reaction was quite underwhelming, and to be honest, I was preparing to hand out leaflets and have a seminar on my travels. Thats how I thought people would react, that they would be interested. From their point of view, I guess, this place has been a revloving door, so you know what another who's leaving, even though it may not be to another company. Still leaving.

So then, that reaction continued through till Thursday. By lunch on that day I had enough. I felt quite flat and highly unmotivated, so I thought screw this, and decided to take off some where. I went to the city, and started off at Dymocks on George, and that was really dead - they should probably start refurbish thier store and their image. In this day and age, when you have mega stores like Kinokuniya and Borders, the Dymocks and Angus & Robertsons of this world really have to sharpen their act.

So then, still seeking some inspiration to wake up in the morning, I headed of to Borders. See normally when I'm in such a mood, I could eat something nice, like oportos, or buy something or sit somewhere and take in a view etc. I need inspiration to get me going. Books are also a great source, especially, ones on architecture or interior designing, stuff that is done out of the ordinary, or even pictures. As you may know, I love pictrures, and especially of ordinary Indians - a face can tell you the story of a life time. But I hate routine, I hate doing stuff day in and day out, if I don't need to.

So Borders didn't do it for me, although it did get me closer to where I should have been, what would have given me the lift. A while back at Kinokuniya, I was browsing a through the travel pictorial books, and came across this one on Rajasthan. When one looks at colours, at creases in faces, at Turbans tied distinctly, and think this is their life, this is how they live, how they eat, how they interact, the mind goes into overdrive, imagining a person, a relation, a world, quite unique to one its ever been trained to adopt. Its lifts you from a slumber, gives you renewed hope and vigor, to fight on, to emabrace and accept what you have and be content.

This may all sound like romatic idealism, but its a mood, a frame, and I was back in it. I think, quietly, I've been there for a while now, just not able to express the idea, and in the process, have almost shunned a life I was once accostommed to. Infact I've become quite anti-social, feeling less confident infront of those I'm closest to, deflecting all their queries and living in a world of my own. On occassion I've joked, that in my mind, "I'm hangin out in Jaipur somewhere" but the trusth may not be too far.

I think I am in another world, doing my own thing, being my own anonymous person.

So anyways, Friday, was more of the same. While I did do some work and accomplised a few tasks, it was a waste and only felt like going home and veging out. Which I did, in front of a movie called The Recruit starring Al Pacino, and others. Good, twisted movie about a CIA recruitment drive to expose a mole. Or something. In between, I switched across to About a Boy on channel 10. Hugh Grant is awesome in this dead-pan role, and his character is full of character - he does Nothing for a living!

So then, following the movie, can Punk'd. I reckon Aston Kucher is gay, or is probably treated as a spoilt son by Demi Moore, so the host sucks but the pranks are good. Another great show on MTV is Pimp My Ride. Cars of ordinary kids are done up to reflect their persona. Nice.

Anyways, that brings me to today, and I've found out I can get Robin Hood Prince of Theieves from the Video Ezy at Wenty. Can't wait.