Falling To Rise

And then you fall and then you rise

This fight is not for all but the wise

There is anxiety and there is grief

There is work to do in time brief

There are tiny but trillion thoughts

And inside you, your mind rots

There is failure but there is hope

And you can do without dope

There is loneliness but there is love

One day you'd see the white dove

Tough times many will come on your way

But "all for good" in the end you'll say

You would have many, not one choice

But always hear your own inner voice

I am not far but inside you somewhere

For one reason that you are here.

And then you fall and then you rise

And then you learn of this life's disguise.

This is NOT an original post. This poem is by Arnab Ghosh. I loved it so much that I decided to re-post it with his permission. I loved this poem cos its so much full of realities and still has so much hope in it.

Hope you guys enjoy it too, let me know!!

Cheers!!

The story so far....!!!

Few of things before that....

1. Yes, I do plan to continue this blog.
2. I will write the part 2 of the Leh trip, nonetheless months later and though nobody read the 1st part, anyway.
3. I have a bunch of other stuff drafted but never finished and posted, hope still remains I will do that some day.
4. I know the project “50 days Pune” did NOT work out and I am todally bummed because of that but I will be back in Pune again someday and complete the project. Thanks for the support guys but life got so crazy that I just could not get it done.

Now, the story so far...

1. The place I called home “9, Padam Appartments” is no longer mine and I left Pune on 10th Aug.
2. The journey was quite eventful till Mumbai but thankfully pretty mundane then after.
3. Reached Boston safely and had lot of fun meeting people at Boston.
4. Stayed with friends for few days and the reception was heart warming.
5. Moved to hostel couple of days back.
6. All settled in the dorm and seems like a fun place.
7. Classes began today (pre-MBA) and the class is totally awesome.
8. Looking forward to getting busy with course work to take my mind off from missing Pune, friends and family.

Unpacking was the toughest part. It had a sense of permanency to it and that felt scary. Past trips to the US were always short and there was ‘homegoing’ to look forward to... There is no going back now.. There is no place to go back to... Its all ahead of me from here...

But there is always hope.. Hope to make new friends - like old ones, to make this place home and have even more rocking time here....!!! Herez to the (to-be) home and more good times!!!

The Unforgettable Trip Part 1: Pune-Delhi-Manali

The plan was ready for years, ppl were willing for ages but somehow we never took-off for the most awaited trip... But M (Do check out her Travelogue and awesome Blog) and I were as resolute as SRK was in MNIK to meet the President; we just had to do this before I started B-school.

“LEH-LADHAK we are coming..” on second thoughts now, it’s more like “Leh Ladhak we were coming”

Day 1:
AJ (who dropped out of the plan multiple times but finally stuck along with us like a hair on the soap) and I started from Pune by Durronto Express from Pune to Hazrat Nizamuddin, Delhi station. The journey was full of chaos thanks to the cranky kid in the coupe. AJ gave him dirty and nasty looks but to her and my dismay the kid was quite a fighter. The food took me back to hostel days when the food was insipid and slimy. Needless to say AJ was crestfallen as she wasn’t able to get her timely portions of food. We spent most time reading till a salesman (who I thought could teach ‘How to Sell’ at any top B school) conned AJ into buying a deck of playing cards for 90 freaking bucks. 52+3 pieces of paper for 90 Indian Rupees!! That was some serious business. So reading (I read ‘Indira, a biography of Indira Nehru Gandhi’), playing cards and cursing the cranky kid (at times his mom too) kept us busy and Delhi arrived at the wee hours of the day.

Day 2:
Growling stomachs and the scorching heat disarmed us from thinking straight and we took an auto for 300 bucks to travel the 10kms distance between us and delicious food. I do NOT regret it!

CM welcomed us in her typical no-hug-only-handshake fashion. We hugged her nonetheless. CM’s mom had made one of the best breakfasts I have ever devoured (this word will be overused in the following text, be warned) on; Aalo Bhaji and Parathas. Now that stomach was full, it was time to do the next favorite activity; actually I am not sure which was our MOST favorite activity; Sleeping or Eating?? It’s like choosing your favorite kid or choosing between Khwaja and Aarjeyaan. One just cannot pick one. So we slept till it was time for us to catch the bus from ISBT, Kishmiri Gate, Delhi.

We took a Metro from Patel Nagar to KishmiriGate with a stopover at Rajeev Chowk to shift from Blue Line to Red Line (or some jazz like that). The KishmiriGate Metro has an ISBT exit and the station is just a few strides away. ISBT was dilapidated and smelled as if there was a swimming pool of urine close by. But time did not allow us to go check that out!! Sigh!!
As I had earlier mentioned, or maybe I didn’t; we were supposed to travel in a group of 4 but SK cancelled on the 11th hour and just the trio was left to en… dure err… enjoy with each other… But 3 is an odd no. of ppl to travel with, not just mathematically, even logistically. The bus was a 2*2 and we were 3. CM was stranded on a seat and a CID kind of suspense was building up as to who will come next to her. I took it upon myself to find a female co-passenger for her and looked up with hopeful eyes only to find we were in a bus full of Honeymoon Couples. On a brighter side we were in company of love so to say but I requested many couples and none wanted to leave the sight of their newlywed! Only if it was a pensioner’s bus they would be queuing up to exchange seats with us!! I almost got one guy to move out of his seat when I heard a little mumble from his wife… ”No, I want to sit with you tonight!!” It was just a night long journey dudes… Oh wait..!! Makes sense!! I gave up my search once I had it all figured out.

The journey was uneventful except for AJ puked all night into a poly bag while CM and I slept peacefully. We reached Kullu at 8 AM. The drive from Kullu to Manali was so beautiful that even logs like us didn’t blink let alone sleep. The beautiful Beas River was flowing so gracefully that AJ even allegedly reported that it made her cry. That was a bit too much and she regrets confessing it to us for all the jokes we made. Kullu to Manali passed quickly absorbing the beauty of the river and listening to some exceptional oldie songs.

P.S: Forgot to mention we watched “Dabaaaang 1”; a lahori rendition of the original blockbuster. It was an experience in itself. We were only cranking to what lied ahead of us.

Day 3:
We got down at Manali station at 10 AM. We had made bookings with a Hotel but we decided to ditch that fella and look for a place to crash nearby. In a very classic “Bunty and Bubbly” con style, we got conned into taking a shithole called ‘Pawan Hotel’ near the station for 800 bucks. And when I say shithole I mean a shithole. It was room which could barely fit a bed and 2 chairs and we had to walk on our toes to move around. The sheets were polka dotted only that the dots were made by Cigarettes, the blankets… let me not talk about it... You get the idea, right!! Whatever the conditions, with be our unwavering love for sleep we spent the whole noon sleeping clinching to those godforsaken blankets!

The best discovery of the day was “Aasheiyan Hotel”. Its right on Mall road behind the Bus Stop. Aalo Paratha (aalo was our staple food thanks to CM), Aalo Bhaji, Chola Bhatura and Gobi Paratha…. (slurrrp!!) each dish outdoing the other!! We forgot the woes of Pawan such was the magic of this food.

Completely content, we began our search for ways to get to Leh. I was closely monitoring http://leh.nic.in/ from Delhi. Manali to Leh always flashed in the garish RED as CLOSED. But we knew there were ways to get there rather we were hopeful rather too hopelessly. We visited more than 10 tour operators checking status of road, rates, possibility of reaching and timeline. Many completely dismissed the idea, some were sympathetic, few were daring enough to ‘smuggle’ us but overall the tone was towards the negative side. We were now coming in terms with reality… The dream Ladhak expedition might not happen. Ouch! It was too much to accept.

As we moved from one tour operator to another each kept mentoring we are just 3 and might need a couple more to hire a Sumo or something like that. Also, interestingly, each kept mentioning about 2 guys who visited them ‘just’ before us looking for company too. But we were destined to meet. And meet we did at Antrek “Wanda” Tours. I say ‘wanda’ not cos of their service but cos the lady at the office used this particular word so often that after a point all one could hear was ‘Wanda Wanda Wanda’. Wasn’t very encouraging, but we met these 2 guys there who were looking for company and seemed pretty good company to travel with. Our only criterion was to find ppl who can tolerate the Trio’s noise levels. They fit in well!! May be to their later regret, we couldn’t care less at that point in time. We were going to KEYLONG; it was mid way between Manali and Leh. Hope was still alive, we were bad at budgeting till that point in time though!!!

Happy and merry about the effort of visiting so many tour operators paying off so well we decided to treat ourselves with… what else… A grand DINNER!!! After the grand dinner at another must visit place called ‘Sher-e-Punjab’, we decided to sleep (yes, yet again as we planned to take off at 3 AM to Keylong).

P.S: We also visited Manali Carnival. For some reason a guy (allegedly a Marathi) kept calling it CarVInal. And as sophisticated as we are, we made jokes about it all the time and now we can pronounce Carnival only one way… Carnival!!
Come back for more on the Keylong trip and much more.I wil add pics as soon as I have ‘em.

Cheers,
Anagha

50 Days Pune

Pune… The city where I spent last 7 years... Yes, 7 long years… But looking back now, it seems like a very short time… Pune is home… It’s the place where I really ‘grew up’, where I learned and got many awesome things, a place which will always be special and I would want to come back again and again. But for now it’s time to move on and leave this city… for good, I guess.

I will be moving base to Boston, MA from 15th Aug to pursue a 2yr full time MBA at Babson College’s F.W Olin Graduate School of Business. This leaves me with my last 50 days in this lovely city. As much as I am sad about the fact of leaving, I don’t want to spend this time cribbing and crying… Instead I have decided to revisit all the great memories, places and ppl from last 7 yrs. While doing so I will keep a log of it here.

50 days and 50 posts... That’s my target… The posts will serve as an excellent memoir for me and might come handy to ppl who are new (even old) in Pune and looking to explore… There will be many personal references of course but I will definitely make an effort to keep it understandable without any prior knowledge. So here I begin the last 50 days before I scoot off…!!

Bon Voyage!!

I have created a new blog for this @ http://50dayspune.blogspot.com

I will continue writing here for the next 50 days....!!!
Do visit!!

The lost hour!!

So last night while I was well not sleeping and listening to some blissful Mark Knopfler, something happened and I lost an hour... Many call it Daylight Saving, I just think its evil.. A prank played by the insomniacs to make the sound sleepers suffer.. Just like that in a moment of bliss I lost an hour and the enormity of that event stuck me... Its a freaking HOUR we are talking about..

This not-so-happy realization made me take a trip down the memory lane.. Not sure if it was the music, the snow fall or may be something I was having, the philosopher, the introspect-er and the trying-hopelessly-to-cling-on-to-the-past-er took over.. Remembering all the hours which may not have been possible in this lost one but the ones most close to the heart.. Some happy, some not so much, some euphoric, few insane..

1. The 60 min of Sunday mornings when my brother and I were 10 and 8... And Jungle Book..
2. The 1 hour sports period every week during school.. When sports meant shouting at the top of our voices and running berserk all over the place..
3. The hours appointment with the dentist every 15 days.. I believed at that time the ghost looked exactly like the fat lady in the white coat who knew only one word ‘Spit’!! The ice cream grand-mom used to get once we were out of the satanic places. I miss you, Aaji and I no more think of you as the devil, lovely Dentist lady!!
4. The hour in the school bus each day.. The most fun part of the schooling experience.. The hour of singing, antakshari, fighting, gossips, cheating on the conductor at times when traveling by government buses, arguing with strangers over acceptable limit of noise that can be created in public transport.. Geez, feels like yesterday..!!
5. Moving to junior college, the exactly 1 hr lunch break everyday... The hour of new excitements, old stories and new spices, the hour of teenage independence...
6. The one hour extension on Sundays to “In-time” in the hostel. This hour turned into hours as we progressed through college days though.
7. The longest hour when I was trying to reach college for 3rd year result. It was a ritual and superstition to collect the result with the bunch of together. We feared if we all were not together something nasty might happen. I was getting back from Mumbai and trying to make it on time only to learn that there was an Auto-strile. Darn!! I walked, ran, crawled in midst of 100s of worried calls and texts till I made it just in time.
8. Every 60 min of Puoshttam and Fiodiya Theater play.. In the light room or on the stage the euphoria was always at the peak..
9. The excruciatingly unbearable hour of Somaiya classes on Engineering Mechanics. The professor had an effect on the eyelids that it was impossible to keep ‘em open but he hated them closed and in between the students spent an hour of agony and closeness to god to just praying for the hour without getting caught..
10. The most adventurous hour White Water Rafting in Kundalika river with the bestest set of friends...
11. The 10th season finale of FRIENDS.. Watching it with friends and wishing that it never ended...
12. The hour narrated in my last post..
13. The only 60 minutes spent by the beach before midnight on 31st Dec night after a 29 hour journey using all possible means of road transport... The 60 precious moments of splashing waves, tipsy eyes and hardly burning bonfire was the beginning of the most crazy friendship bonds that will last a lifetime...

This list made me think of many other moments which essentially are not remembered with an hour’s measure... All those.. some other time...

For now, in the memory of the hour.. that could have been...

The journey against time...

It is acceptable that after an exhausting 5 day conference the brain doesn’t work that well but it performs to such abysmal levels is unacceptable. So I was set to fly on a 6AM flight out of LA to Chicago. Yes, 6 AM!! I guess I had started losing it that time itself. And for god knows what reasons.. actually could be the party that night.. I booked the cab for 4 freaking AM. Another friend had an International flight to catch at 6.30 AM and I rubbed of my imbecility to him as well and he too agreed to leave at 4 jinxed AM. FYI: we knew it takes min 30 mins to reach the airport from the hostel.

The lovely day before the journey was spent at Universal studios, Hollywood by yours truly without ever reconsidering the the departure arrangements. As I was shouting my tonsils out at the Jurassic park and Mummy ride, somewhere a taxi driver was falling sick and contemplating bunking work the next day. As I was happily shopping at the souvenir shop the same guy was deciding not to inform his boss for whatever goddamn reasons. And thus was sealed my date with the most traumatic journey so far...

Tired as an obese guy running the treadmill for 3 entire minutes, we returned to packing, remembering each moment of the last 5 splendid days together so that we don’t forget a single penny with each other and exchanging pictures so that we could show off on FB and back home. The session was so intense that I could hardly catch a wink. My friend and I were ready at 3.55 AM at the hostel reception to err... WAIT!!! I gave the cab guy a reasonable 30 secs of delay time and approached the manager frantically. Turns out the manager was a patient guy and decided to wait 10 mins before he would make the call. It was 4.20 AM we were still at the hostel with no signs of the taxi. Restless, I finally called another cab. And as fate had it, the same obese guy who ran the treadmill was there to pick us up. It took him an eternity to get back in the cab, buckle himself up and get going.

I was just about to heave a sigh... and there I was.. STOP... I forgot my bag pack at the reception. We were just a block away from the hostel so I got down and ran... The longest run of my life... It was 4.30 AM and we were just starting for the airport. Cab driver asked what terminal and my friend did not know his terminal no, it was not even on the print out he was carrying. Very smugly I looked at my print out and announced terminal no 3. We dropped my friend at terminal 1, which btw turned out to be the right terminal for him and his entire journey from there was uneventful and peaceful while I was just gearing up for the crazy ride.

I got down at Terminal 3 and started looking for American Airline counter when a lady which I am very sure was a witch announced that American Airline was Terminal why god why 4. I looked at the godforsaken printout with a new vision and realized terminal 3 was at Chicago. So with my 20 pounds each check in bag and a 8 pound bag pack, the 1xx pound I ran again. It was 5AM and I din not even have my boarding pass yet. I crawled to terminal 4 and tried to get in the queue, it was too long so I got in the self check in. For some reason it asked me $60 and I had no time to argue with the machine so I made the payment and got the boarding pass. Only to realize I was actually traveling to Fargo from Chicago and did not have enough time at Chicago airport for baggage transfer. This stuff cant be made up... It was happening and I was living it...

I HAD to get into the queue to get my baggage tagged to Fargo and the queue was of all the ppl on the earth who cannot use the self check in machine of course. So the pace of the queue can be imaged. I finally had my turn after what felt like sitting thru Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, the lady very graciously asked me for $60. But I just paid it to that good for nothing machine. “Then check in from there” she said with that glint in the eye. It was 5.10 and I had no choice but to give her the bucks... She tagged my bags and we exchanged fake smiles...

Thoroughly tired I ran towards my gate which was 257 miles away from the entrance. But I passed the security hurdle and made it at the gate just in time. The privileged Business class was then boarding. For once in my life I was happy to NOT be traveling Business Class... Little Joys!!!

I gave my boarding pass and entered the aircraft which felt like entering heaven. Uncannily, I was not frustrated or angry at myself. It was a lesson learned and a good change from my boring traveling routine. I even punched the air and smiled as sat on the worst seat on the plane....

Long Silence

Its been a long silence.... Still trying to figure out what was it that kept me away from my beloved blog...

Was I too busy.. Or I did absolutely nothing worth mentioning...??

Was it a writer’s block.. Or I am just mistaken in considering myself one...??

Was it because of the several setbacks... Or just the high personal standards.. ??

Was it cos of the sleepy days.. Or the restless nights.. ??

I am yet to figure that out but what I do know is I need to get back to this old friend... There are a lot of stories I want to share a lot to vent... So here I am back again... To... telling stories... attempting lame jokes... futile efforts at profundity... and loads of whining... So here we go again....