A LEGENDARY TRIP TO MATHERAN: PART I

Don’t know where adjactly it started but it went out to become huge one. After passing out of GIM, rarely does it happen when so many of batch mates meet up and plan something together. Whether it was Gupta ji’s Big fat Indian (Baniya) wedding  or trip to “Vaishno Devi” or Ozaaaa’s birthday celebration and mother of them all, the grand alumni meet. 

But this one stands out differently in a way that all of them were well planned in advance but this one happened just in time (JIT). I think half of the people did not even know about the plans. Sugam, Rubal, Sunaina, Nidhi, Ishaan, Rashmi were the few who were informed a night before the trip. 

But there is something which brings us together again and again and that too in large number even .I have rarely seen this spirit among fellow MBAs grads from other colleges, for them, if they manage to meet even 5 or 6 of them, it’s a celebration for them. For us, it’s a regular weekend routine which has to be completed as part of our unofficial KPI’s. 

GIM, along with other managerial skills (ahem, ahem), has built a thirst in us. A Thirst for group outings, a thirst for outbound trips, a thirst for staying in each other company. After one month of GIM expedition, a pent up demand started building up among all of us and that turned out to be the reason that everybody agreed as soon as asked for the trip. 

A night before the trip we (sugam, rubal, anurag & tapan) had few rounds of drinks in Gokul, colaba. Don’t know about Tapan but sugam, rubal, anurag and I were 99% convinced that we would not be able to make it for 7 o’clock morning train and I am sure that many of us were thinking on the same line. Come’ on man, who wakes up at 5:30 on Saturday morning. But tapan had planned out something differently. He woke up somewhere around 5:20 and started tormenting all the Mumbai people on his cell. In his usual outburst “haaaaaa” style he started waking up all of them. This guy seriously drives some sadistic pleasure out of tormenting other poor souls. 

At that time, I was deadly missing a remote control which would have helped me to “Mute” this creature called Tapan ozaaaaa. In this chaos I could not sleep any next moment. So I myself decided to play devil for a while and interrupt other’s sleep. First obvious target was Anurag bhargava. He was sleeping with his butts at a leg distance from me. I raised my leg to the maximum height possible and here it goes. Bingo…I striked directly on the target. He looked at me angrily and almost pledged for few more moment of sleep. This was one of the happiest moments of my last one week. This bugger has tortured tens of people around him as his

 daily routine. But for those few moments, he was at my mercy. My immediate targets were Rubal, Sugam and Sunaina. Oh…Oh…Oh… don’t apply your logical mind. I targeted them through my phone only. 

All set, Tapan, Anurag and I boarded a taxi to dadar station. There we met Sudakshna, Sundaram and Nishita waiting for us. The train was right in front of us but we could not board. We missed that all thanks to Rubal and Nidhi. Our Always “confused” nidhi made up her mind just 5 minutes before the train schedule departure from Dadar and she was some 45 minutes away even by the fastest mean possible. Rubal did nothing different and as always lived up to his expectation of being late everytime 

Finally, Rubal, Sugam and Sunaina arrived at the station. Now the tally stood at 9. Nidhi was still missing and train was about to arrive in some 5 minutes. Tensions were mounting on everybody’s face. Nobody wanted to miss this train since the next one was an hour after that. Suddenly someones mobile started ringing. Everybody looked for their phone. It was Sunaina’s. Train arrived but there was no sign of Nidhi. Nidhi was right on the station but on a different platform and in that mounting confusion, she missed the train barely by few moments. 

So here Journey to matheran started. Chinzi, Abhishek and Ishaan boarded from Thane. Nihit and Reshmi were coming directly from Pune. Nidhi was about to board the next train.

 Some one and half an hour later, train reached Neral Jn. We were 13 of us. Straight opposite to station, there was a wine shop. No matter how far we run from alcohol, it keeps following us wherever we go. In order to not to disrespect, we brought cans of alcohol and resumed our journey to Matheran. We took a taxi to Matheran which was some half an hour away. Some 10 minutes of journey and we were on curvy ways through hilly area. Believe me, after Mumbai sad life and endless traffic, waving through these curves was an altogether different pleasure.

 Some 20 minutes later, we reached matheran. Even in distant dream, nobody among us could have imagined that such a beautiful place can exist in close proximity of Mumbai. All the beautiful words would fall short in describing the scene. 

Soon Nidhi, Reshmi & Nihit joined us. The group swelled from 10 initially to 13 and finally to 16. We had a heavy breakfast in the afternoon and were ready for trek. The trek reminded us of kerala Night trek (popularly remembered as “Shit trek”). Rubal had hardest of his time

 controlling his “bio” break. After some 2.5 km of trek we reached Matheran city. After searching through 2-3 hotels, we managed to get a good deal. We dropped our baggage, had our lunch and somewhere by 4 o’clock started for another trek. We parted in some three groups (not by choice but thanks to few lethargic people) 

 Weather was turning from good to better. Clouds descended down to greet us. Mist in the air made our trek more pleasant. Clouds were so dense that visibility level had gone down to some 10 meters. We were passing through an aisle completely surrounded by jungle from all sides. As we were moving toward the fag end of the day, it was turning darker and darker. There was no sign of light around us. 

The scene could not have gone any more scarier. One needs to look at the faces of Sunaina, Nishita & Richa, who were with us at that time. Fear was dripping down from

 their faces. To add to our woes, we lost our way. But it was all fun watching gals huddled together. The fun was short lived as we found our way and came back to our hotel. 

Everybody was dead hungry and as soon as food was served, we jumped on it. Everybody was happy but nobody knew that we had a scandalous night waiting for us. There was something very dirty in the closet which would change the very ground rule of how we used to communicate with each other. But believe me, it was so much fun that everybody left with the same question mark… 

“Why it did not happened during our 2 year stay in the campus”? 

Before going into much detail, let’s go back to where I left. After dinner we gathered in a single room. The clock was showing near 10 something. It was time for some alcohol. In the menu we had Antiquity Blue, Old Monk, Wine for ladies. Over an above it, we had the Legendary Jack Danials, “Baap” of all the whiskeies. “Euro Trip” on star movies

was an icing on the cake. We had rounds of alcohol. Since Nishita’s birthday celebration was 12 in the night and we has approximately an hour to pass before that. We started playing “Dumb charades” to pass time. Though it was a usual play and there was nothing special to mention about, but it could not be completed without mentioning Sunaina’s part. She literally came out with the answer of all the “B” grade movies(“chadhti jawani” & “Peticot mein Visfhot”). Hahaha.. sound strange??? But it’s true. 

It was 12 in the night and time for nishita’s birthday celebration and we did that in grand style. Come’on man, after college, this was the second birthday(first was tapans’) of our batch, where so many of us gathered together. Lucky Nishita.

Past 12, we had planned for cards but since no gals was in a mood to walk away to catch some sleep, we left with no option but to postpone it for some more time. Now what to do??? Here came a bouncer from Sundaram, he proposed Nishita to select one person for “Truth or dare”.

And guess what… who was Nishita’s first target... Abhishek, no… It was sundaram himself. 

Showing a true Men’s spirit, Sundaram choosed “Dare”.

So what did Nishita asked him to do…. After consulting with lots of dirty minds inside the room. She asked Sundaram to “Kiss Tapan”. Sundaram was pushed to the wall on hearing that.

 Tapan’s smiled the blood here. He got something he wished for years.  Tapan ki pyassi atma jag chuki thi. He jumped out of his bed to accost sundaram. Sundar back stepped. After nagging for tens of second, he Kissed tapan. Geeeeeee… came the sound from the audience. It all happened in a blink of second that without anyone’s consent, we became part of it. Now there was no option of walking out of the room.

A Dirty game was about to begin and there was no exit door.

It was Sundar’s turn to choose one and he choose Tapan to take his revenge. To his happiness, Tapan choose “Dare”. It sent all dirty minds back on job and came out with something very weird. 

With his bare upper body, Tapan had to fantasize wall as a woman and caress it, feel it and say one thing “Aha baby, o yeah babay, aaha aaha”.  

Tapan took no time in doing that. In no second, his shirt was out. He flaunted his tummy the way Mallika Sehrawat do with her assets. He did his task better than to be asked for. For few moments he was totally into that. There went a big round of applause. And from that day onward, instead of usual “hello”, telecon with Tapan starts with “O yeah babay, aaha.. aahaa”.

As expected, Tapan choose Chinzzzi. Continuing the dare devil spirit, chinzzi choose “Dare”. All the dirty minds back on job. Our POGO king Abhishek went back to all the secret folders stored in his mind and came out with one dirty idea. I didn’t know that dirtiest one was saved for me. 

Tapan said to Chinzzi… “you have to give blow job”… fuck… all jaws in the room left wide open… everybody stared at Tapan with a big questionmark…. to what??? Tapan had a Devilish smile on his face. “He looked down”… Oh, its goanna be ugly this time…for few seconds everybody held on to their breath… “at an empty bottle”. Ehhhhh…. Chinzzi was dumb shocked but must have relieved thinking that things might have gone dirtier. He did that like a horny babe.

Now it was Chinzzi turn to choose his victim. He choose Ishaaan and since Dare devilry was getting dirtier and dirtier. He choose “Truth” to play safe. 

No consultation on this. Tapan seemed to have prepared his set of questions in advance. The question was. “Have you ever made up with a gal before coming to GIM”. Reshmi was all ears for his answer. Ishaan took a thinking stance… everybody thought that something very serious will come out. Reshmi seemed tense for a while. But to her delight, Ishaan answered in a naught. Ahhh.. What man, he must have lied for sure but reshmi was happy for the time being. Our Dude walked away without paying any price.

Now it was I-zaan’s turn and he took Anurag for the task. Continuing bearish mode, he choose “Truth”. Tapan and Sunder seemed to have hit a jackpot. They seemed to have their task cut out. They consulted for a while and fired: 

 “Given a chance, which GIM gal you would have preferred to marry”? Buggers left behind a loophole in their question and forgot to mention “batch 2006-2008”. Anurag smartly pointed out that and named “Aditi” from batch 2005-2007. Boooooooooooed… a long booooed followed. Though everyone knew and expecting something known but they wanted anurag himself to confess which unfortunately did not happen because of Ozaaaaaa foolhardiness’. 

Anurag selected Sugam rathi. Showing a true dare devil spirit, lamboo choose “Dare”. Lo kar lo baat…who will dare to take pangaa with Soogam. So keeping all the consequences in mind, sugam was just asked to do “saawariya” in ladies format. And he did it in style which made him a contender for best performance. Whistles from gals followed. Tapan showing true “Dostana” spirit joined them in. 

Now it was Sugam’s turn and he selected Rubal. Rubal been bearish on the market choose “Truth”. So what kind of question from Rubal could have created excitement? Yeah… You are bang on target; they were related to PC only. One could have actually seen the disadvantages of being in relationship. Like I-zaan, Rubal was asked to bare his past and tell about his past relationship and other than PC, which gal would rubal have fantasized with?” seeing the  benchmark of previous tasks, it was expected.

Rubal denied any past relationship (oh yeah…) and answer to second part of the question will stay among those 16 participants. We all knew that Rubal just did what all Mens are good at… “lying”. Let’s move on, there was no point pestering Rubal. 

Rubal choose Abhishek. And continuing the couple’s tradition, he choose “Truth”. The question was same as rubals’. “Before coming to GIM, how many gals you made up with and how”?  How seemed to e out of context but it was 2  o’clock past midnight and such question were expected. The answer was equally weird. Abhishek said, “ I made up with two gals and with one on the  bike at the outskirt of city”. Did someway say bike… abhishek seemed to be playboy for the moment. When asked how come on a bike. He said he could not wait to find a hotel and they made up on the bike itself. how can one do on the bike....hmmm...Whatever…  

Now it was abhishek’s turn and he took me to the task. I choose dare and what he asked me to do was dirtiest of the night. Never in my dream could I have imagined that I would be doing such a thing ever in my life…

 

Stay tuned for the second part… will be here very soon J

 

 

Book Review : Three Mistakes of My Life

I don’t know about my other mistakes but deciding to read this book was my biggest mistake… kidding guys…never mind, but these were my thought process when I was midway to finish the book but the author handled the climax so brilliantly that my decision to wake up till early morning hours to finish the novel did not seem futile.

This is about three small town guys (don’t know how come ahemdabad fall into small town category in author’s dictionary) Omi, Ishaan and author himself. Omi father is a priest and has instilled hardcore Hindu values in him. Ishaan is by far a good cricket player but his only grump was that he could not make it big on Indian cricket scene but he is a Hero in his small locality. The author belongs to a below average family but has good business sense. He is being perceived as more of a businessman than a friend by his mates.

In this novel, Chetan Bhagat has banked his theme upon one of the biggest selling things in India. CRICKET. And he trysted it with a typical clandestine Indian romance story and the Gujrat Riots. Somewhere I think that chetan has deep sense of understanding of what an average Indian reader looks forward into a novel. He makes sure that the reader would not fell bored while reading. Trully speaking, first ¾ of his novels proves to be typical masala movie and climax totally unthought of.

If you would have read his first two books titled “five point someone” & “one night@call center”, you might have got fair idea of chetan’s flair towards putting atleast one sex story as part of his book. In Five point, he shared bed with his toughest professor’s daughter and that too in her own house. This part of story is no way different in three mistakes. You only need to replace professor with his Best friend and daughter with his Friend’s sister. The location is no way different either, roof top of his friends house. The author seems to have lost novelty in creating new ideas. Seems that he needs some help in this particular area.

The story takes an unexpected turn and end somewhat on a sad note. But yeah, it’s worth a try. People like me who have read his earlier two books & were desperately waiting for it for a long time might get disappointed.

I am expecting an innovative and something on completely different lines from his portfolio next time.

But Yeah, I would not mind the couple going naughty in his next sequel too J .

Mumbai Treat

It’s been a long time since I last posted on my blog. But there are few things you want to capture forever. Internet has provided you the space to retain your experiences in your words and carry them forward.

Lots of things have changed in last few months. I am still trying to cope up with Mumbai fast paced life. To me, everybody seems to be living a robotic life in Mumbai. In the morning, when you move out of your home (or shall I say apartment) for your office, you become part of a crowd. “I” get lost in crowd and make way for “we”. “We” somehow defying all grammar rules become singular. “We” has no identity no name. “We” heads towards one direction in the morning and opposite in the evening. Sample size of “we” keeps on changing but even then there are few faces, one can always recognize.

For one, there are no names to address each other. There face becomes their only identity. Even though one recognize other for the last one month being travelling in the same train, one just passes smile to greet each other.  That’s a new form of bonding I saw in Mumbai locals. And that bond hood became possible only because of this robotic life where one become time bound to catch 8:40 bus to dadar and then 9:05 local to lower parel. You make a minor miss and you get late by 15 minute to your office and that’s what I hate the most about Mumbai, it traveling part.

In between all of these, “Ganesh Utsav” came as a welcome change. Whole of Mumbai seems to be gripped by a traffic siege for these 10 days. But nobody seems to grumble about it. You have to witness it once to admire Mumbai spirit. For the past 3 days, on my way back from my office, I have witnessed tens of procession everyday walking past me. People dance to the tune of Dhols and various other musical instruments. They seem to forget all of their tension for those few moments. Though it took me almost two hours to cross a distance of 5 kms but I did not mind this time around.

People say Mumbai is a city of dreams and rightly so once you become part of Mumbai your dreams go bigger and bigger. Let’s put it this way if you have dreamt of owning Mercedes at one point in your life. You just need to take a walk along marine drive and I bet you will come back with a bigger dream and that’s to owe Porche, Maybach, Ferrari or something you have never thought of. That’s Mumbai magic. So you keep dreaming till your retirement to owe one and Mumbai will keep retaining its “dream” tag. ;).

 

Ask the pankazz...

just aise hi... found on Youtube, liked it so thought of uploading on my page.... moreover it goes with name of my blog too.. :)

28, Talwars

For those poor souls who are still at home and waiting for their joining date, the above address might seem more familiar. Yeah, its home address of Aarushi Talwar, who was being murdered on 15^th may under mysterious circumstances. For the last few days, all news channels were abuzz with this “most murkier murder mystery” of the year (quoted by Aaj Tak). Everything from jaipur blast investigations to by-polls in various cities were put on back burner and all those menial creatures’ who happened to be news reporter few days back wore a new avatar of “crime detective”. Each piece of information, remotely related to the case was being served as “breaking news”. After the “great khali” tamasha, Media has got something, they waited for years. Just to increase their ratings, they can go to any extent possible. I really hate them.

In all of these, Police seemed to have hardest time of their life. Even after 7 days, they were getting nowhere. In between, police started zeroed in on Talwars’. They broke open their garage, made their home a small cantonment with 15 of constables guarding it. They started giving signals to the media that murder is the handiwork of either a “doctor” or a “butcher”. Suddenly everything started pointing towards Aarushi’s father. Just when I wished that it should not be her Father, all news channels broke open with another breaking news and this time it was about the arrest of her father. Everybody left astonished and they have only one question to ask “why he killed his daughter?”

Police came out with something contradictory story with lots of loopholes. The biggest one is, the father took the servant on the top floor and hit him there, which on very existence questions the blood trail on the stairs.

Second biggest flaw is that father wanted to kill her daughter first and only when he found her daughter in somewhat compromising position with their servant, he murdered the servant first. Now, someone please ask these man-in-uniforms that how come in this world they found 50 odd years old hemraj to be attractive enough to catch her attention, bullshit.

Now, her mother, Nupur Talwar has come out in the media to save her husband. Now if we believe in the police story, then with extramarital affair story of her father in open, tell me which person will get hurt the most? It’s her mother of course. So with daughter not any more in this world and betrayal by her husband, Nupur has nothing left in the world. Even then if she is defending him is something unusual of sort, which point that there is something very wrong with police version.

Whatever the truth may be and wherever the investigation will lead further, the truth is that one innocent has lost her life for no fault of hers. May God bless her Soul.

These are my personal view on the subject. Feel free to dissect, analyze & drop in your opinions in the comments box.

Slogging time...

Thanks everybody for their comments... and thanks I err for spotting the errors :).. Though m not gonna rectify them.. Coming back to IPL, as of now.. With almost 4 matches to go for each team, Rajasthan has already booked its spots in the semis. With Punjab and Chennai almost certain for second and third place respectively, a tough fight is emerging for the fourth spot between Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai.

Delhi lost its last match to Chennai all thanks to Rain God… Which interrupted at most unexpected time of the year, May... seems luck has deserted sehwag's team.. hey Delhi gals, somebody do the preity' Zinta's act to sehwag to boost his morals.. They have everything, what they need is few drops of luck syrup. J

Kolkata, I already said they need more attacking batting performance to survive in the tournament. Right now, kolkatans are following a strategy of saving wickets in first 10 overs and fire in the last 10, which worked against Hyderabad where they scored above 200, but it has serious flaws, which we saw in subsequent matches, where they scored in that range of 140 with half of the side still to bat, John Buchanan needs to rework his strategies.

As of now, Mumbai Indians are back into their groove and have won against all the major sides after tasting defeat in initial four, but think, what if jayasuriya won’t perform on a given day, though they do have Sachin, but he is not firing at the moment, m not doubting maestro’s abilities in T20 format, this is just that he need couple of more innings to do jayasuriya'a act. They need their middle order to perform with confidence. With bravo leaving for his country today, Mumbai Indian are left with more responsibilities to shoulder upon.

T-20 comes with its own flaws. In such formats there are no favorites and no dark horses. On a given day, a single player can win match for his team. Jayasuriya, McCullum, sehwag, gambhir, sohail tanvir, Dada, dhoni, marsh, hussey are live examples. What works here, is the spontaneous reaction to the conditions at hand.

So Coaches, enough of analyzing, it’s time to take front seat and perform. Your Honeymoon time is over.

YOU ARE AT WAR.

IPL Dissection

Indian Premier League has proved to be a great success till now. Even the promoters of the event haven’t imagined such a great show. Let’s have a look at the point table till date.

Team	Played	Won	Lost	Points
Rajasthan Royals	9	7	2	14
Punjab Kings	9	6	3	12
Chennai Superkings	10	6	4	12
Kolkata Knight Riders	9	5	4	10
Delhi daredevils	9	4	5	8
Mumbai Indians	8	4	4	8
Deccan Chargers	9	2	7	4
Banglore Royal Challegers	9	2	7	4

Poor Deccan and Royal challengers, they are simply ducked out of the series without producing any serious competition for their opponents. While Deccan was the hot favorite before the start of the tournament, royal was not far behind in the bookies hot list. But now both of them are looking for reasons for their poor show. Dravid blamed it to the lack of infrastructure and Deccan to the poor gelling of team mates together. Whatever the actual reason may be, one thing is clear, T20 is a game of guts and player with the iron balls, who can dare to look into the eyes of their opponents and rip apart their attack. Obviously Deccan and royal failed to qualify on all the above parameters. They are rightly nicknamed the best test teams of IPL. :)

Pity Mallaya and pity their supporters (chinzz, Ck, sundaram).poor souls.

Let’s have a look at other teams.

Rajasthan Royals, they have taken everybody by surprise with their performance. They have already qualified for semis and most probably will go into finals, but I still doubt their chance of winning the tournament. No doubt, they have done brilliantly in the league matches till now, but they still lack any charismatic player who can win matches on his own.

Punjab Kings, after losing first two matches, they have managed a good show. They have everything required for a 20-20 game… youth, power, charisma and a gorgeous fan in Preity Zinta. Now as a bonus, after every win, if you (only Yuvraj) get a power Hug from her, then who the hell dare to lose the match? They have hitters like Yuvraj & marsh, middle order with sangakara and sarwan, bowlers in sreesanth, vrv singh, piyush chawala & hopes. They are the serious contender for final along with Chennai. Best of luck for them.

Delhi Dare devils, they looked promising from the start, but midway they defaulted and lost four crucial and close matches on the trot. They do have match winner in sehwag and gambhir, but the middle order have still to fire. But on their day, they can produce magnificent show and turn matches into their favour.

Chennai Super kings, they are a strong side and instead of small lean patch midway through the tournament, they are doing very well and are the strong contender to win the tournament. Though, in yesterday match with Mumbai, jayasuriya ripped apart their bowling attack, but I don’t think dhoni must take it seriously and scold his bowler for their poor show, as everybody knows that Jayasuriya is a whimsical cricketer in such format of game, and on his day (which happens very rarely) can do anything unheard of. Chennai do have good bowlers in muralidharan, Goni, balaji.

Kolkata knight Riders, after Australian( especially McCullum and hussey) left the tournament, it seemed, kolkatan have lost their sheen but after the sparkling debut of shoaib akhtar & good show by Dada, they are back in the race. When it seemed that knight riders are out of the game they came back fiercely. With ishant, akhtar, agarkar in bowling and dada, akash chopra, salman butt in the helm of batting, they seemed a formidable side.

Mumbai Indians, they lost four games on the trot and won the next four, what a side they are. When almost everybody written them of, they managed extraordinary feat because it’s always difficult to come back from where they did. This is real magic of T-20. With Sachin back in action, jayasuria firework, uthappa steady form, bowlers in nehra, pollock & bravo, they are on the way to prove that why they are the most expensive side of the tournament.

As far as I am concerned, I am supporting Punjab kings XI along with Priety ;).

Your comments are most welcome.