I’ve met so many interesting, complicated, funny, strange people this year, I can’t even begin to describe them! But I can attempt to make a start with Lavannya and Vivek. Both of them – such brilliant photographers and so talented. Interesting personalities. One naturally outgoing. The other, quietly unassuming. And their work speaks more than words – awe-inspiring stuff.

When I met Lavannya at a Bangalore Shutterbugs meet, she made quite a big impression :) We kept in touch and then one stormy evening, we met at Shiok on our first official “date” and had a nice heart-to-heart chat till the rapidly deteriorating weather forced us to think of finding our ways home. She kept getting messages from a “somebody” who wanted to make sure she would be okay getting home. I kept asking her why “somebody” was getting so worried and teased her mercilessly!

Anyway, one year later, they’re married! A huge congratulations to Lavannya and Vivek – wishing you loads and loads of happiness and good times ahead…

We missed out on all the fun since they decided to tie the knot in Lavannya’s hometown - Baroda. But we more than made up for it at their party at Shiok last evening making immense amounts of noise, drinking immense amounts of alcohol and having immense amounts of fun! I always seem to have a lot of fun at post-wedding parties, as some of my other friends will quickly agree :)

I decided to experiment with a few crazy shots for the evening’s celebrations. Don’t be too scared, we’re actually normal people!

On the long weekend (Aug 13-15), about 15 of us headed to Pondicherry. So this is a little late but I usually follow the maxim, “better late than never”!

It took about 100 mails going to and fro. Finally, about 15 people decided on Pondi as the destination for the long weekend.

The last time I went to Pondi, I have warm (or should I say hot) recollections of walking around the place in what seemed like 40+ temperatures. Sweat oozing out of our glands like juice out of lemons. I had only my sister for company. Both of us wearing cute colourful caps and walking around in the summer heat trying to look cool and discovering Auroville in all its splendour. That was a fun time!

This time it was a little different. For starters there were so many of us that at times I felt like we were at Forum! Restaurants had a real problem with us since it’s hard to find a table that accommodates so many together. And the waiters in Pondi, we found, were the rather surly types. Added to the situation, the fact that we weren’t French. Whatever little French we spoke got rejected by the Mauritian in the group (you are murdering the language, he said!). So that was the end of our brief affair avec la langue Française.

The plan was to set off at 4.00 am. We did finally manage to all take off from Bangalore at 5.00 am on Saturday morning. By about 9.30 am we were in Chennai where ee stopped at Murugan Idli for breakfast! It was a long way to go for a meal. And the idlis were a little soggy. But the yummy chutneys more than made up for the long and circuitous route to TNagar and asking a million people for directions on the way!

After that break in Chennai and another longish break in Fisherman’s Cove near Mamallapuram, we reached Pondi around 1.30 in the afternoon.

The whole world and their neighbours seemed to be in Pondi that weekend. There were massive crowds everywhere. Especially at Aurobindo Ashram there were long queues to get in. And Goubert Avenue, the main sea-front road of Pondi was choc-a-bloc with people - everyone assembles in the morning and the evening for no particular purpose (like Forum, again!).

While walking along the sea-front we spy Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in Goubert Avenue. Wait a minute! It looked so healthy that we were suspicious that they actually put someone else’s body and MG’s head on it.

The Alliançe Française at one end of Goubert Avenue in Pondi overlooks the sea face and looked so beautifully done that we are now contemplating doing classes there on weekends. Heh. It was closed, but we poked our noses in to catch a glimpse – it looked terribly inviting!

We made the customary visit of Auroville (but Matri Mandir is shut for repair), frolicked in the sea and relaxed on the beach. On Monday, Shibs and I walked around Pondi town for a while and admired all the cool and pretty architecture. And then went and splurged some at Casablanca (Pondi’s cool mall) and some of the handicraft shops (where everything smells gorgeous and is equally overpriced). Picked up incense sticks, handmade paper objects, candles and generally anything that smelt nice.

Service I must say was really bad; maybe this was because of the unusual crowds in town. But both the dining places we visited – Satsanga and Rendezvous – were pretty dismal. The food was no great shakes either. The macaroni with meat sauce I ordered at Rendezvous was cold and extremely unappetizing. At Satsanga, I ordered some chicken maiyonnaise with vegetables. Thankfully, I wasn’t ravenous. I’d need 3 plates of it any other day!

The best service, I kid you not, was at the coffee shop at Casablanca mall on Mission Street. On the bill, the waiter had scribbled, “It was a pleasure to have been of service to you!” We were really surprised after our prior experiences in the town!

On Monday afternoon, after shopping and walking around, we packed our bags and started off for Bangalore. When we left Pondi and arrived in a temple town called Thiruvannamalai we stopped for lunch at Hotel Arunachalam. And boy, the waiter there made our day. He was smiling pleasantly all through, got us our dosas in super fast time, and actually took the trouble of slicing the dosas when we said 1×2. We were tempted to take him back to Pondi to teach some of the waiters and restaurants there about service!

We stopped at an ashram called Ramana Shri Ashram in the same town. One of our traveling companions went inside the meditation room and was showing no signs of emerging. Meanwhile, we watched the peacocks frolic.

Reached home at about 9.30 pm after a most pleasant tree-lined drive through Krishnagiri. And it only took us about 6 hours at a really reasonable speed. Definitely a route I’d like to go back on a bike someday!

Some takeaways from the trip:
1) Pondicherry is a hot place! Avoid till Sept-Oct if possible. Unless you actually like sweating buckets.
2) Preferably go in a small group. The problem with large numbers is that you hardly spend anytime with most of the people and tend to hang around in smaller groups. Thus defeating the purpose of the trip in the first place (i.e. to spend time with friends!). I’d say a size of 5-6 is perfect for a chilled out place like Pondi.
3) Don’t expect great service in Pondi :) Slow and easy (the French way?!) is the mantra. Even the bill takes almost as much time as the meal!
4) The best way to get around is on cycles and bikes. They’re on rent in the city and Auroville. The perfect way to see the place.

The Pondicherry album is here.

This is a meme from Anupma’s journal. Just for some harmless fun… And a prize!

1. Though I am a right hander, I occasionally eat with my left hand. I believe that it makes my food tastier for some reason!

2. I am an avid fan of horror movies. My favourite past time is renting out 3-4 of them and watching them in succession. Through the night. With company of course (need someone to clutch during scary scenes). And loads of popcorn!

3. I once went to Goa and ate only chicken. No beer, and surprisingly, no fish at all!

4. My favourite perfume is Lancôme’s Poeme.

5. i love writing long emails in lower case only. i think it is really cool and once in a while i’ve even posted blog entries written completely in lower case. i simply ‘lowe’ it! i am going to write a book someday. all in lower case.

So here it is – I fibbed – just once. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, and know me pretty/reasonably well, you should be able to guess where I’m lying! If you can catch my fib, there is a prize waiting for you!

- I have gone down MG Road several times and never once noticed that one solitary bungalow just after the Yahoo! office.

- I have driven past Nalli showroom time again and never noticed the empty space beside it.

- The bungalow apparently belongs to the only person who is not selling out to commercial developers. I mean, how many people can boast of having a residence on MG Road? The empty space is apparently the plot of the bungalow where Winston Churchill had lived in, when he was in Bangalore.

- Churchill wrote 2 books when he was stationed in Bangalore as an army officer. He also fell in love for the first time in Bangalore and the lady was from Hyderabad. She went on to marry someone else.

- Did you know that the term ‘Bangalored’ began before the whole outsourcing controversy started and has military origins.

These and other really interesting facts formed a part of the ‘Victorian’ flavoured walk that Shibs and I went on early Saturday morning. A group of about 15 of us started at Trinity Church (I had never noticed this church closely before either). The concept of Bangalore Walks was started by Arun Pai and he has been running this for a few months now. Many cities have these kind of walks so it is quite encouraging to see that Bangalore now boasts of its own walk. In fact, Arun is also trying to come up with a bike tour, a pub crawl tour etc. to spice things up a little and introduce some more variety. For those of you who are interested, watch this space.

The group in front of the impressive pillars of the East Parade Church on MG Road

You might wonder what’s the big deal in taking a walk down MG Road. To begin with, we discovered a lot of things that we were never aware of earlier. Arun has done his research well and he took special efforts in sharing with us interesting historical tidbits that we would have never known otherwise.

A group of about 15 of us walked down MG Road and Arun literally made us feel like we were transported back to Victorian times. When MG Road was one huge avenue with trees and bungalows on both sides. And there were no cars. Just horse carriages. The trees are still there (most of them anyway) but the bungalows have all been replaced by commercial high rise buildings. Another bungalow on MG Road continues to stand – the occupant is a school principal. We even sighted ducks, geese and even a turkey in his backyard! Right there on MG Road. Who on earth would have imagined?! Halfway through the walk, we sat down before the office of the Horticulture department (there is a lovely garden in front of it) and had coffee, buttermilk and biscuits that Arun had gotten along.

Interestingly, I had emailed quite a few friends for the walk, but gotten a mostly negative (or a cynical one) response. Why would we pay someone to take us for a walk down MG Road, one responded.

Well, I have been in Bangalore for about a year now and never have I walked down the road with anyone. Nor has anyone ever pointed out the interesting heritage monuments and houses in this part of town. In fact, Ms Shibs who accompanied me, was brought up in the city and said she didn’t know so many things about Bangalore’s history and heritage.

A collage of some of Bangalore’s monuments and famous places

- Bangalore Walk Album

I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about Bangalore, wants to do something interesting instead of sleeping on a holiday morning and wants to taste the culture of the city he/she currently resides in or is just passing through. I will desist from talking too much about the walk itself, because it’s best experienced!

After the walk, retail therapy ensued and I went home happy with 3 pairs of shoes. I am not too much of a shopper. So when I do go shopping I pick up enough at one go of whatever I want, so I don’t have to go shopping for a while. In the evening, we watched a play called When there’s a Will at Rangashankara. It packed in some laughs, but did get a little repetitive at times. I think what saved it was the performances. Especially the one by the lead actor who plays the father. He’s only 25, Miztek, tells me. I couldn’t believe it! Quite an admirable performance for someone so young.

On Sunday, after French class, went to Crosswords for a book shopping binge and picked up a few:
- Long Way Round: Chasing the Shadows – Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman: I’ve been wanting to read this for a while. I love Ewan McGregor and my estimation of him only went up when I found out that he had taken time off to travel around the world on his bike! Along with his friend Charles, Ewan recounts their adventures over 20,000 miles in 4 months.

- A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle who writes about some interesting experiences and humourous tales of life in the French countryside.

- A book on cat care

- A book on French grammar (if only I’d actually read this stuff!)

This to add to my growing pile including the latest Hari puttar, The Romantics (Pankaj Mishra), and the Penguin Book of Indian Journeys. Ah, I think I will need to devote way more couch time now to complete all the books I now have on my “to read” list!

Last week was so hectic that at times I had these out-of-body experiences where I looked at myself doing several things at once and thinking of twice as much and feeling rather sorry for myself. And added to that a headache that started somewhere around Monday and kept plaguing me at intervals of time during the week like I needed a reminder that I had one – a head I mean – not a headache.

Deki’s baby continues to get cuter everytime I see her. She was a total doll when she was born and I swear, I have not seen a cuter baby. And thanks for all that Bailey’s Irish Cream last Sunday, Deki :)

We had to say goodbye to Arnab last week, and we went to Samarkhand to celebrate the occasion. (Just kidding, pest!). I heard of the precocious Arnab Nandi when he had come up with idya.net (which he eventually sold for undisclosed millions and has stashed away in Swiss bank ;) and he was in Delhi at that time. I kept in touch with him via email and we finally met at Just Around the Corner on this fateful day when he came to Mumbai! I think he even treated me to a dessert, which is saying quite a lot since he refused to buy me even a coffee here.

Sometime this year, I got an email from Mr Nandi saying he was soon coming to this city so we better watch out. Since my exposure to Mr Nandi was limited to that one meal, I had quite a good impression of the boy. Much to my dismay, Mr Nandi turned to be a quite a pest (as I discovered during a camping trip a few months ago) and tends to remember his mum a lot in these situations. But I think his foray into the outside world (read: Amrica) will teach him a few lessons yet ;0) So Mr Nandi, here’s hoping to catch up with you somewhere again soon! I can’t believe I am saying this, but we will miss you :)

Another blogger to meet – this time it was Charu who was passing time in Bangalore as she was not able to get back to Mumbai because of the rains. We spent an evening at Shiok (where else?!) where Madman plied us with some food and amazing orange liqueur. Suman was expecting someone with a moustache and was speechless for a bit when Charu turned out to be a ‘she’!

On Friday, I thought I’d settle into what I call “my wasting away in the couch” days, and was all prepared to spend some time with the cat, when I got a call from the lovely Ms Shibs and the charming Mr Z. Plans were hatched quickly and we went to this rather nice pub in Forum called Firaangi Paani.

If you haven’t tried it yet, it’s quite a decently done up place and worth a visit. The music they played that day was really good – all old rock and roll numbers. And they did wonders to my rather low spirits at the end of the week. A few folks a table away were having a mighty good time and especially one waif-like girl who was dancing with several of the men at the same time. I don’t know how she got to be so thin, but I definitely wanted! (what she was having, I mean ;). A special thank you to both Z and S for being such sweethearts though it will be a while before I forgive both of you for what followed. (Revenge is in the offing, Ms S).

After crashing at about 3 am in the morning, we were up at 6.30 am and had to rush across half the countryside to reach MG Road. We had bravely enrolled for the Bangalore Walk on Saturday morning. We barely made it but that is the subject of my next post…

A few years ago, I remember being stranded in office during the height of the Mumbai monsoons.

Reading this account, I was transported to that day. There were about 12 of us. We had a small office at Fort. This was before we shifted to our larger office in Mahim.

We started playing dumb charades at about 7 in the evening to keep ourselves entertained. When we heard that the trains had stopped, most of us gave up any attempt to try and get out of office. Some braved the odds and took taxis from Fort to their far off homes. Though it turned out to be a really expensive proposition, since most of them had to shell out heaps of money. In fact, finding cabs under the circumstances were also next to impossible. The best thing, as we discovered, is to stay put wherever you are. And that’s exactly what we did.

It turned out to be a memorable night. Ordered fish curry rice from a restaurant nearby. All of us sat around the food and finished it in no time. Resumed playing DC and this went on till the wee hours of the morning. One by one, folks went off to find comfortable places – on top of the desks, joining chairs – doing the best they could. Unfortunately, the place was cramped and not suitable for overnight stay, so some of decided not to go to sleep at all. Playing DC till early morning can be a tiring experience. One also runs out of movie names. I think, by morning, we were even beginning to make up several of the names.

I remember this being a fun experience, because the next day we were back in the relative comfort of our homes. The rains subsided and things were back to normal. Not so this time around. It’s much more serious. People spending more than 2 days in the office. Stranded for hours on end in stations, bus stops, roads. Not being able to get through to their loved ones. Carcasses of animals. Debris everywhere. Cars abandoned. Phones not working. Offices shut.

Talking to friends in the city and reading some accounts, I can only imagine how bad things are. The other day, dad said over the phone that he is glad that I am now in Bangalore because they would have been so worried. They have already had their share of worries about sis when the UK bomb blasts happened.

I do hope that the battering stops soon. I think the city can only take so much. I know everyone is talking about all the brave stories that have emerged out of the disaster, but I think this is one more disaster that Mumbai can do without. Personally, I am glad I left when I did but I have to admire the resilience of the city.

On the other hand, Bangalore has hardly received any rains. While it threatens to rain all the time – overcast skies and heavy winds. There’s a small shower and that’s all. Possibly, this is all we’ll get this time around.

In a way, it’s probably for the better since we all know what happens to Bangalore when it rains! In fact, if Bangalore was battered the Mumbai has been, this city would probably not survive at all! I shudder to think what would happen. Someone commented that these kind of rains would never happen in Bangalore. But then was anyone in Mumbai expecting the kind of rains it received? Not even the Met department apparently…