3 weeks in Bangalore and counting

Nothing can be more exciting than moving to a new city. The 3 S's (sights, sounds and smells) have to be imbibed all over again. I set off on my new city mission just a couple of days into the new year so moving into a new city was doubly exciting. Too much new stuff.
As I journeyed from Bangalore City Railway Station to Shrirampur I was thrilled by the bustling in the city. I was eager to dump all my luggage and jump off and go exploring. All the new routes to be learnt, quaint shops to be chanced upon, favourite places to be discovered. Aaah each thought set me up on a high.
My weekdays are very busy here. Every morning my roomie and me set off at 9.00 am to catch our shuttle bus for work. It makes us feel very important because we both are playing adults now. From buying our groceries, cooking, going for work and all in all we are carrying an important air about us. Smug really. I too have gotten more responsible. I can't seem to find trace of the lazy bum that I left home. I get up early, prepare my breakfast, clean my room and am always ready on time. My mum's efficiency has left it's mark on me. Thanks mum.
The weekends are a different story all together. The days are spent roaming the length and breadth of some place till my legs give way. The first weekend my friend and me had a leisurely brunch at the IISc Prakurthi Canteen and watched some monkeys play haovoc with food. Later we ambled all over Malleshwaram. We found a second hand bookstore and I bought a Wodehouse and English, August for myself-something that I had been waiting to read since a very long time. We ate yummy apple cakes and bought Moong Dal Halwa from Asha Sweets (Yum Yum!).  And later we rested in Sankey Tank looking at the water and the birds and gossiping after a very long time. My day was made.
The next weekend my roomie and I set off to Shivajinagar. Here too we roamed all over Commercial Street, Brigade Road and Chuch Road in search of the elusive Blossoms Bookstore. We tired out eventually with no luck and then we chanced upon Russel Market. I couldn't resist and plunged inside. And we again out on our adult demeanours to shop and bargain for some veggies. The day was awesome all in all.
And yesterday I finally met my sister. Co-incidentally we both got to work in the same city for the same time period. Real Sisters ??? :) She took care of me like always and I became her baby sister again. Now once again I'm off to be wrapped up under her wing again. Sisters are the best darlings in the world. Nothing comes close.

Roacher the Roach Ranger!!!!

Well I have one smart and hungry lizard to write about. It's the same lizard that woke me up a couple of days back from my slumber. Today it invited me for tea and snacks!!

I was trying to bang my head against my books in the evening at 4.30 when again the mysterious thudding started. It didn't occur to me that the same lizard was at play. At first I ignored the sound and tried to study but the sound persisted. I had to spring into action. I shifted the wardrobe and Roacher was at work again. (I've named the lizard Roacher) It had just caught a cockroach and this time I was prepared. I lunged for my camera and I photographed the lizard patiently eating the cockroach while the cockroach made desperate bids to escape but to no avail. The jaws of the lizard are really strong. Roacher took 45 minutes to consume the cockroach and now as I write this it is resting benignly at the side of my wardrobe. 

Will upload the entire sequence of pictures tomorrow :)

Things that I do and Catch 22

Finally my bike is home after being through hell. It looks all shiny-shoo, it also feels good to touch. But the best part is that it actually moves now.

After refusing to budge an inch, I deposited my bike with the mechanic during these holidays. The holidays came as a curse as well as a blessing meaning I was stuck at home for a week while my bike got a makeover.

I was a model of laziness this week. I lolled around the bed all the days, watched movies all the nights and fell in love with Catch-22.

Curiously, on previous occasions when I had attempted to read the book, I couldn't get past the first 4 chapters. And all the time not a word would penetrate my thick skull. Those occasions would amount to nearly 10-12 times. This time I was determined. I had to read it after being subjected to such rave reviews by an assorted number of friends and one going so far ahead as to even offering to narrate the story. (The friend did manage to tell me the plot and what exactly is Catch-22). The book didn't appeal to me previously and I found it to be sitting on the pinnacle of ennui.

Now I find myself eating my words. The book is singularly the most brilliant book I've come across in a long time and I happily hooked. And I also wish I knew a real Yosserian. He's cute.

The real Yosserian would detest the word cute.

The book, the said friend and me!

CAUTION--LONG STORY AHEAD. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

It all began when my friend asked me to lend him Linda Goodman's Sunsigns. I lent it to him gladly, thinking that he would return it within a week. This was in August 2008. Well things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to and the entire episode culminated with me turning as red as a beetroot right up to my boot!

So I met this said friend of mine at Peppinos-a joint on F.C. Road, a week after I lent him the book. However, my friend's brain is wired to be in a state of permanent absent-mindedness. He is a hopeless case and there is no cure for him. Even he knows that and agrees whole-heartedly with me. Since I expect promtness, I was anticipating the return of my book by him that day. But he plain forgot. I not quite forgave him but the I let the matter at rest and decided to take it from him next time I met him. Like I had a choice.

And so the days just kept passing and the pages flipped till the month of May 2009 and this is where the crux of the story lies. It was time for the said friend to leave Pune for his hometown. I received a number of calls from many of our common friends to meet up before he leaves. But yours truly was stuck in a whirlwind of exams to study for to fulfill the requirements of obtaining admission to a decent post graduate course. And so the ever elusive time was never on hand. I prefered staying at home and directing other friends to collect the book from him. Messages were passed, messages were exchanged and everything was set. Well no, not really.

One fine day the entire group decided to meet and I stayed put at home. The said friend was to deliver my book to another friend (1) who was to meet me the next day. And so next day dawned and my friend like Santa Claus delves into her bag dramaticaly saying, ''I have something for you."

Now I am exceedingly fond of presents and so I clap my hands only to be presented with Linda Goodman's Lovesigns. Alas for my childlike joy!! The said friend's brain didn't work right and thus was presented with the wrong book. I used some choice words on him but had to limit them owing to the fact that my mother was beside me. The day had just got worse. I promptly dialed his number but I was instead told that the subscriber was out of coverage area. What crap!

Called up another friend (2)and after exchanging pleasantries as quickly as I could, I asked her if she could somehow get in touch with the said friend and somehow wangle my book out of him. She said yes but she didn't know how she would do that as the said friend was leaving the next day and she had no means of getting in touch with him a he had very kindly quit using his phone. So the net was the only way of establishing contact with him.

Next day dawned and I met another common friend (3) online and asked her to give me directions to the said friend's accommodation. She tried but I was at a loss because the said friend stayed at a place where I have seldom ventured-Model Colony. And thus so I was armed with crude directions.

I found myself in the whereabouts of Model Colony at 12.30 p.m. No balance in my phone. I reached the BSNL Office and went round and round a couple of times. Couldn't follow the directions my friend had given me. Tried new routes but they were all in vain. Yet I was calm. Tried going in different directions and landed up in the same place thrice! Then I messaged my friend (1) asking her to call me back. I waited and cursed around for some more time. I reached some shops hoping to recharge my phone but none were available of my Service Provider. So I called up friend (3) asking her for directions again but I was successful in getting confounded again and while speaking to her friend (1) called. Friend (1) claimed to know the directions much more clearly than friend (3) as she was fortunate enough to visit the said friend at his accommodation just the day before to collect my book. She gave my a new set of directions. I revved up my bike to retrace this path now and I again landed up at the BSNL Office. Now oh boy was I panicking or not!!

I finally reached some place which I imagined to be a paying guest accommodation. This I assumed is where my said friend stays. And I even spotted a tailor's shop opposite the apartments which curiously shared my name. Taking this as a good omen I thought that I have finally reached my destination. I stopped a passing lady and asked her if this is a PG Accommodation. She said sorry (?) and that these are quarter for LIC employees. She asked me the name of the person I wanted to meet and I gave her the name and she old me that he lived in one of the bungalows on my right but right now he must be in office.(????????)

I backed out from there and started on my search yet again.

Friend (3) called me up again after 15 minutes to find out my progress. None had been made whatsoever. She volunteered to locate him online and convey my dilemma to him. It was a tiny sliver of hope. Meanwhile she sent me packing on a new set of directions. It was 1.45 p.m now. Inching towards clocking 90 minutes since I had first set out on my task. I vroomed up my bike this time with my jaw set. It had to be now or never.

Splutter splutter. To my increasing disbelief, I found myself in some shady place with not so nice looking strange men giving me even stranger looks. Oh Good Mother of God. Why oh why did I ever manage to get myself in this scrape. Really truly, I'm an awful person!

And then my phone sang. It was the said friend. Oh what joy! Rapture! Never had I been ever so glad to hear his voice. He was genuinely concerned about my antics and promptly asked me to meet him. Gladness overtook every feeling I possessed. “Where?” I asked, “do you want to meet?”
“Why the BSNL Office of course” he replied. Well at least that was one place that I knew oh so very well. He said that he would be there in 5 minutes. Swell I said and zoomed off.

Friend (1) called me up then and told me that she was successful in locating the said friend and delivering my message to him. I could have kissed her. She said that it was a stroke of luck that she had found him online. Later the said friend explained that he was helping his friends move to different locations all across Pune. "Social service?", I inquired of him. He said hesitantly," No. Not quite. I'm hoping that if I help them now they'll come and see me off at the station today evening." He he.

I reached BSNL Office and the said friend was already waiting there for me with my book. He had returned another friend's book to me and that other friend thought that the said friend had already returned his book to him. (Confused? So was I). And so I had been stuck with the wrong book and the other friend thought the has his book which he actually doesn't. Like I said my said friend is absent-minded. He had somehow managed to convince his other friend that he had returned the book to him. Story ended? Not quite.

We had a lot to speak about. The usual stuff about admissions, exams, the meanness of professors, the smartness of students et al. And thus we spake for quarter of an hour. And then it happened- A shooting loud noise started emanating from somewhere close by. It was a screeching alarm and a handful of people shot out of the BSNL Office. We thought it was a fire alarm and we looked around interestedly. The sound was deafening to the ears and we could speak no more. One man ran towards his car thinking the burglar alarm must have set off. He checked the horn, under the booth, over the booth, locked the car, unlocked it but still couldn't figure out the source of the alarm. The said friend and I pitied him and resumed our conversation at a slightly higher pitch now so that we could make ourselves be heard. And thus another 15 minutes passed. The mad guy was still going over his car and I thanked my stars that it had nothing to do with me.

Then after much time had passed, some men walking past me told me that I was leaning against my bike's horn and so I was the source of so much shrilling noise and anguish. I had left my keys in the ignition. The mad guy came running towards me and started going over my bike. And then he grinned and said, “ I thought the sound was being made by my car. But now I see that your bike was causing the sound.” I grimaced and felt the blood rush up to my face and the mad guy was so happy at not being thought mad anymore. Oh I could have hid my face anywhere, anywhere but there. And it didn't help when my said friend said that even he didn't realise that the horrible sound was coming from my bike. Soon a crowd gathered and they pointed at my bike and I was utterly shamefaced. My said friend was staring down at me nonchalantly. I wished he would have said something, done something, at least laughed. But he didn't. And after the crowd dispersed he blandly resumed his conversation. Now my heart was not set in talking and I was still mighty embarrassed. After another quarter I hurriedly waved him goodbye and a happy journey and he told me conversationally, “ Don't go leaning on your bike's horn anymore, go home safe.”

Well!

Characters-
Said Friend- Anirudh Venkat who shares my love for books.
Friend (1)- The great Anushree Kogje. I can trust her with absolutely anything in this world.
Friend (2)- Ishani Bose. Sweet and charming-as always.
Friend (3)- Mahalakshmi Ganapathy. Never fails to help and one person whom I know for sure I can rely on.