Back from a hiatus in a new अंदाज़!!

 

   The post originally appears at this link.

   Moving to Medium in order to interact with a younger, more digitally savvy audience.

   Well honestly from one Ev Williams product to another.

   Twitter in the hey days was something. Nothing has ever peaked that much. 

   Does it really matter?

Bedroom story

Many people prefer to play it safe with decoration in the living room or other public-facing areas, often just to make sure the theme is appealing to a variety of guests with unique tastes and preferences. But private bedrooms are a little different – each one is a sanctuary, a place to relax and dream. Bedrooms are one of the few places a guest doesn’t necessarily expect to see during a tour, so residents can feel free to experiment with bolder and more creative bedroom styles. They’re the perfect canvas for personal expression, where obscure motifs look right at home. Let these gorgeous bedroom examples inspire exploration.

These are the bedrooms I like.

 

 

 

Designer: Room Design  

Let’s start with something dark, dramatic, and beautiful. This bedroom certainly doesn’t shy away from making a big impression with strong accent colors and rich unconventional textures.

The Hippie Autowallah

I took an auto-rickshaw from my hotel for the bus stand to board my bus back to Delhi. I was in good mood seeing a deal go through that day.

But the auto- ride that followed was something which I never expected. I don’t have words to sum up my encounter with the auto-wallah.

ME:”Where are you from?”

AW:”I came from Lucknow 10 years ago, my father is a principal in a government school. I had a job, did a computer course too but didn’t like job so I quit. I don’t like jobs. I like my life, I drive my own auto, and have my own quarter to live in. With this profession it is necessary for me to drink every night.”

At this point we stop at a traffic light; he sees a chick standing on the footpath. As the light goes green he drives near that chick, slows down in front of her and says “Excuse me, I Love You” and then races away.

AW: “I have everything. In the past 10 years I have seen Chandigarh change a lot. Earlier there were petrol autos then diesel autos came and now CNG autos. Even the people have changed a lot”

ME:”How has Chandigarh changed?”

AW:”Chandigarh has become a sexy city now, the girls are very very sexy here these days. People fuck a lot here in Chandigarh. They like to joke with me too. Once I had 4 girls in my auto. They started asking me whether I would fuck all of them, I said I could only fuck one, so they started giggling and said I was not a man. I have fucked lot of chicks in Chandigarh.”
He sees a chick on the footpath again and repeats his “Excuse me, I Love You” chant.

I am sure this dude is high but I cannot smell any liquor.

ME:”What kind of different customers do you get?”

AW:” All kinds of customers. Rich people, normal people, criminals as well as prostitutes.”

ME:”Have you ever been beaten up?”

AW:”Me NO! I keep a steel rod which you can find under the foot mat. (I pick up the rod, its stone cold heavy steel) I have whacked a couple of guys in the head, no one died though. I don’t like violence, I like fucking chicks here in Chandigarh. Sometimes, at late hours I get to drop prostitutes. They don’t pay me but offer to rub their pussies. I have fucked loads of pussies here in Chandigarh. Tell me one thing, what does “Me too” mean?”

I tell him.

He sees a chick on the footpath again and repeats his “Excuse me, I Love You” chant.

AW:”Sometimes when I say “I Love you” they reply “Me too”, I don’t understand much English so I don’t get it. But the chicks here are too sexy I tell you.”

He slows down his auto again, I expect what is coming.

AW:”I have everything a man needs. A home, a wife and a kid. I will go home, drink and sleep. Today is Friday; I will have to fuck my wife also today. I will have to go home after dropping you.”

At this point we reach our destination. It was a random weird experience. Next Stop: to fight a candid stoned / drunk truck driver. I think those guys would have more random tales to tell.

Pal Da Dhabha

Location: Sector 29B, Chandigarh
Specialty: Non-Veg food home made style

This place retains the typical feel of a punjabi dhabha with a cooler setup in a corner with old and weared off tables and chairs making up for the ambiance. The waiters are typically old school with a no nonsense attitude ready to recite the menu before you even ask.
Speaking about the no nonsense attitude, written over the wash room's entrance gate is "Please Speak Soft".
The food is absolutely delicious with expertise offerings in both mutton and chicken dishes. We had a chicken masala, roghan gosh, mutton curry with rice and butter roti's.
The place was full of people shredding away the etiquette's of eating and attacking their dishes the way they are meant to.
A little on the expensive side though, we had to shell out 250 bucks per head but its worth a visit for the chicken hungry people.

~Laters

Punjab Travels -II

On this trip we travel into interiors of Punjab, to a small city on the Chandigarh-Amritsar highway. I take a private AC bus from Chandigarh and am dropped off 4 kms away from my desired location on a highway in middle of nowhere. I had to board a Punjab roadways bus back to the city's bus stand.

The city where I went to had no signs of private or public transport, if you are very lucky you would be able to find a tempo on this highway, its claim being that everything is close by and you can reach from anyplace to anyplace by simply "enjoying" a 2 km walk on the highway. Regardless to say I "enjoyed" a 2 km walk from one part of the city to other in order to reach my destination.

The people here were very warm, humourous and welcoming. A pan-wallah bitched about the city transport system to me for around 20 mins , while the people at the place where I had biryani and beer were also very candid. Coming to Biryani, this is the best part I love about Punjab-people are foodies over here and the restaurants know what to cook and more importantly how to cook it.

Came back to city life of Chandigarh in the evening.

Sitting in a CCD right now and trying to fix meetings after 2 of my meetings have been canceled.

~Laters

"You can never go back home"

I was recently watching the movie 'The Man from Earth', again for the nth time, but analyzing the content of the movie this time around i.e. each and every dialogue of the movie. The movie is based on a rather intriguing concept of a fictional question and answer session which elucidates the evolution of mankind and institutions developed around it at its very core.

I am currently engaged on a project titled 'Content Analysis' which inevitably led to me think about this particular line from the dialogue between John Oldman (David Lee Smith) and Linda Murphy (Alexis Thorpe). In this interaction, John Oldman tells Linda that he can never go back home because, "He doesn't remember where home is" because of the urbanization of towns and villages over time.He further explains that this is the reason for the popular saying,"There is no going back home".

I graduated recently out of an engineering school and have started to miss the hallowed corridors of my alma mater already. My alma mater is a city within a big metropolitan city. One can call it as a school, a community, a city, a way of life i.e whatever one is most comfortable with but parting away from that way of life and settling in a new life with very different dynamics is not proving to be as easy as I thought.

The line "there is no going back home" created an overwhelming emotional feeling which led me to think about its validity.

Born and raised for 18 years in a particular city created a bond or to put it aptly a feeling of comfort which, grew over those 18 years, has surprisingly gone. I felt this strange sensation when I visited my 'home' some weeks ago before starting my new life. The city has grown in the last 4 years, people have changed,places have changed but more importantly the feelings associated with it have changed as a result of alterations in my perception of people, places and systems. The place where I grew up is not the same place now, the people I grew up with are not the same people now and same holds true for me:the person I was then, I am not the same now. How can I ever perceive them in the same manner. The most beautiful feeling I have experienced in a long time has been the immense increase in respect for those four walls, the relation of childish innocence and love coupled with the remembrance of those truly cherishing memories. But my home, my city, my life of those 18 years is not there anymore. As aptly put, "there is no going back home because it not there anymore".

I went for graduation to another city, a big metropolitan city which changes everyday. But I grew up in a way of life within that city. The life which formed me and destroyed me, made me smile and made me cry. The relation with one's alma mater is always deeper than anything. Its the place you enter as a teen-aged dreamy-eyed boy and come out as a hard and scarred man. I have my convocation in 2 weeks time and then I will officially part away from my community / my city /my people i.e. my life. Years will go by and I will change, it will change. The only thing constant would be the memories, those things which were said and done as a result of my ever evolving instinct and intent which has inevitably lead me to my present. It will never be the same again. It will never be my home again.

That left me affirmed in the belief "You can never go back home because it is not there anymore"