Every night around 3AM before sleeping I think “Current routine/work/lifestyle is taking me nowhere .. its just helping me buy some time before I die .. fuck !! I need to work harder ..” and then I go to bed .. sleep for at least 10-16 hours .. and there I am next morning (ah .. sorry .. afternoon .. around 2PM) .. Spend almost an hour and a half checking mails/twitter/facebook/orkut/my-websites/blogs/reader/money-earned/money-lost(fucking-exchange-rates)/alexa/and-what-the-fuck-not … shit .. its already 3:30PM .. no mess around can serve food at that ungodly hour .. canteen anyone?? and a few rooms throw 404/301/302 (people not found or moved temporarily or permanently and that means room locked .. go learn http status codes) .. and few others (which means the rest) had food already … fuck!! chances are less than 30% that I’ll have enough motivation to go to canteen and have food.. if I succeeded that means another hour wasted just for lunch .. our canteen is such a waste of India’s top talent’s time (well .. i have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from IIIT which is frequently ranked in top 10 colleges of India by some god-forsaken-magazines .. and by all means you can’t convince a middle class family in India that there exists something which is better than computer science as a career.. so me belongs to India’s top talent :P). anyways can’t miss going to coffee shop immediately after lunch at any cost unless there a threat to my life or coffee shop is closed! back from coffee shop .. now what? well here goes the checklist of a typical computer science student … mails/twitter/facebook/… OMG!! did you notice that its already 5:00PM … time for coffee shop!! ping everyone around to notice that none is interested and people replying back with ‘why the fuck you have to go to coffee shop so often???’… but you still manage to convince a few .. and yay!! coffee shop 😀 after that time passes really quickly till dinner … dinner will be at 4 Seasons/Canteen/Yuktahaar/Dominos with decreasing order of probability… irrespective the dinner place, coffee shop will be visited right after dinner .. and i am so used to this routine (tea after dinner) that while at home once i asked for tea and my mom gave me a ‘what the hell?’ expression 🙁 .. there will be a backlog of updates … checklist .. 😛 .. another hour well wasted.. and then I plan a few things that I should do next … and its around 11PM … so we should visit coffee shop yet another time before it closes … typical procedure … but I somehow manage the last visit … after that a few hours of browsing and then I go the first character of this post …
Food
PhotoWalk near Mahendra Hills (Anand Buddha Vihar)
Yesterday, as a part of our Photography Club Assignment we went for a PhotoWalk in Anand Buddha Vihar. We, a bunch of UG3 and UG4 students, reached Shenoy Nursing Home in Secunderabad in three groups where Sashidhar met us and guided us to Mahendra Hills. Our destination was a Buddhist Temple in Anand Buddha Vihar. We started walking. After walking about a kilometer, we reached a nice place. It was a small hill with flowers all over the place.
Near Mahendra Hills
Gaganpreet aka Bitgeek
Me
We walked further (about 1.5 kilometers) and reached the Buddhist Temple. It was closed at that time. People tried different type of photography with capturing whatever possible. The temple looked pretty beautiful from outside. We were eager to get in.
A view of the temple from the road
Buddhist Temple in Anand Buddha Vihar
At 4:00PM temple was opened for public. We got in and tried to capture as many objects as possible.
Deepak (A statue near the entrance)
Sashidhar, Aditya, Yogendra, Aakash, Me and Nitin
Shrikant got a bit sentimental and took picture of almost every leaf and flower 😛
Shrikant Nigam
Me inside the temple
Close Up
Woodwork on Doors
I tried goggles but they didn’t really go well with my looks 😛
Me
And finally Sashidhar who made this trip possible but eventually got bored.
Sashidhar
I was totally surprised by the beauty of the place. I was wondering why we never visited this beautiful place. After the photowalk, we had good food at McD, VikramPuri and returned home 😀
PS : Thanks Sashidhar for everything 🙂
PPS : I tag Shrikant, Bitgeek and whoever else who was there.
Journey by Train Continued… (Part of Vaishno Devi Trip)
In my last post about our trip, I described the scenario before I almost fell asleep. This is a continuation to the previous post and is a description of the journey. Please ignore language errors.
06:00AM February 27, 2009
I am sitting on a box. A huge stack of bags is placed next to me. Its height is almost equal to that of my shoulders (while I am sitting). I rest my head against the bags. I feel a bit better and now I am trying to sleep. I have covered myself with a piece of cloth. Only Somani is awake now. Next few minutes are as described by Mahaveer (who was sleeping in some other compartment, wakes up and comes to the place where we were sleeping).
Bhai (Kapil A) is sleeping in Somani’s lap. Somani’s face as usual looked like the face of some guy who was beaten all night by few cruel drunkers and left to die 😛 Still giving a strong fight to his laziness, Somani managed act in a manner that expressed his desire to play cards.
Mahaveer shouts in a loud voice, “WHAT THE FU**?? GUYZ, THIS PLACE IS HEAVEN. YOU LUCKY BITC**S”. I wake up with a shock and figure out that everybody was up and equally shocked. Later Mahaveer explained that Sambhav took him to some really fu**ed place where they were sleeping since last few hours. We all feeling a bit blessed (as if we were in first AC) . Few minutes later, Sambhav also joins us.
We (me and Sambhav) kicked Somani and Deepak out and went to sleep. Deepak who was sleeping till now, will take care of the luggage. It is a great feeling to have a place where you can actually sleep. Soon I fell asleep.
Checkout Somani in the video.
Mahaveer is not able to find a place to sleep and hence trying to frustrate Somani (which is the easiest thing to do) just for some fun 😛 After a lot of failed efforts, Mahaveer has decided to sleep while sitting against the door. But there is a fight even for that small place. Somani also wants to sleep. So, Mahaveer and Somani has decided to use the place to sleep on a time division basis with no overtime allowed under any circumstances.
Ajay Somani
We are now at Nagpur station. Everybody is overwhelmed to see the food that Kapil’s parents has brought for us. We are waiting for the train to start so that all of us can have the awesome food we have just got. A long horn and train starts slowly. Everybody settled. Bhai is serving the food to everyone following the Royal protocol. What an amazing food that was!!! Aaloo-poori, pulao, mithai, all Haldiram stuff from Nagpur and what not … The journey/miseries so far felt like nothing for that awesome food. Thanks a millions Bhai for the food.
After having that awesome lunch we started playing UNO. Sambhav and Kapil are sitting next to wash basin. As it is lunch time a lot of people are coming to wash their hands which is time and again troubling Sambhav. I am thinking of ideas to block the wash basin so that people will automatically prefer the washin in toilets but none of them is working. Now it has got interesting. Two girls (of age group 23-27) are here to wash their hands. First one washes her hands and returns with no trouble. Now its the time for the second girl to wash her hands. OMG she is having difficulties. Her second hand is not able to reach the tap while she is trying to fetch water with the other hand. I am observing every single moment hoping for something to happen. oh shit.. she managed to spill some water over Sambhav (a big fu**ing smile on my face forcing Sambhav to react to the incident). But before Sambhav could say something, the girl shouts, “Hat kar nahin baith sakte kya?? Log haath kaise dhoyenge yahaan??“. Rest of us overjoyed by the incident shouts at Sambhav in chorus, “Kaisa hai be… jab koi aaye to thoda hat ke baitha kar … kab se bol rahe hain tujhe ..“.
Playing UNO
We played UNO for hours. Almost till 5PM. It was damn hot and the hot air through the doors was killing. We reached Bhopal at 6:30PM. Now S10 and S9 was almost emty. Few of us went there and slept.
Thats it for today. The most dangerous part of the journey till Jaipur is still left. Wait till next post.
To be continued…
Yours truly’s birthday party / Angeethi / Barista / City Center
Well, It was my birthday on October 25th and today I threw a party. We left for Angeethi at 7:30PM. The journey was fine as the roads were not crowded due to festival season. We were in Angeethi in almost 45 minutes. Got a nice place to sit. Well, after browsing the menu we eventually discovered that there was no soup. Had to order Paneer Tikka and Hara Bhara (chu****pa) kabab which unexpectedly turned out nice. Main course was also cumsi cumsa.
Kulbir Saini Birthday Party at Angeethi
Ajay’s photos can sometimes be really unexpected.
Koi isko (Ajay) ko bhi khana dedo
Afer having dinner at Angeethi, we moved on to Barista which is on the ground floor in the same building. This was first time I was visiting Barista. I ordered something randomly and fortunately it was good. It was fun at Barista. The ambience of the place was really good (from a newbie photographer’s point of view 😛 ) and pics came out real good.
I don’t know what I was doing when somebody clicked this pic 😛
Kulbir Saini Birthday Party at Barista
Kulbir Saini Birthday Party at Barista
After that we moved on to City Center just for browsing random stuff in crossword (a book shop in City Center). After roaming around and clicking pics in city center we moved out.
Sambhav has made these two awesome gifs from the photos we clicked in city center and barista. Hats of to his skills.
Kulbir Saini Birthday Party at City Center
Kulbir Saini Birthday Party at Barista
PS : Though its only a day left for diwali, city is not really decorated. Almost no lights 🙁 This shop which I found opposite to City Center is one of few decorated on the road no. 1.
Krsala Designer Jewellery
Somani’s Birthday / Haveli / Club8
October 21st, 2008
For the very first time we decided to go to a club in last three years at IIIT for a change. And to feel a bit grown up 😛 To get started Club8 was a nice spot because its cheap as they don’t charge you for stepping in.
We left at 8:30PM. We wanted to have dinner in Club8 but then Banga suggested to move to Haveli because it was a bit suffocating in Club8. All of us moved to Haveli. Following Pankaj’s suggestion, I tried Veg Monchov for the first time and it was crap. It may be place specific. Anyway had almost nice dinner in Haveli.
Somani's Birthday at Haveli
After dinner, we moved to Club8.
Somani Birthday at Haveli
People (very few) had drinks. In fact only Sachin, Pankaj and Kapil Bajaj had it. Rest of us are still kids, if I may use that word 😛
Somani Birthday - Sachin, Pankaj, Kapil Bajaj
Sachin was almost drunk even without having a sip. And the dangerous pic says it all.
Somani Birthday at Club8 - Sachin Goyal
After a bit of drinking, everybody for dance. And after that only dance.
Somani Birthday at Club8 - Me
Somani Birthday at Club8 - We
Somani Birthday at Club8
Somani Birthday at Club8 - Sambhav, Nitin Gupta
Somani Birthday - Sambhav, Nitin Bansal, Nitin Gupta
Somani Birthday at Club8
Somani Birthday at Club8 - Me
Somani Birthday at Club8 - Sachin, Pankaj
We moved out at around 11:45PM. BTW It was Ajay Somani’s birthday.
Four Seasons / Hyderabad House / Mak’s Kitchen
October 10, 2008
I was in Yuktahaar mess with Deepak Vig. I picked up plate to fetch some rotis from the basket and my phone rang. It was Pankaj. I immediately understood his problem. I received the call and he asked for going out to Four Seasons to have some biryani. That mouth watering word biryani took control over me. I returned the plate back to mess guy. I accompanied Deepak for the dinner but didn’t have anything. We walked down to NBH main gate. Gaurav and Kiran Dandu was already there. I told them about going out and they were already waiting for someone to join. Finally me, Pankaj, Sachin, Ajay Somani, Gaurav and Kiran left for four seasons.
We reached four seasons at almost 8:00PM. The place was totally full. And when we queried, the attendant said that it will take almost an hour to get a seat for six people. We were hopeless. All of us dying of hunger. Though we didn’t want to go to Hyderbad House because Biryani at that place sucks pretty much, we decided to checkout. We entered the place and as expected we were the only people there apart from one family. We took seats. But to our surprise they had only Mutton Biryani. I wanted to cry 🙁 Hungry!!!!
We walked out. And while walking different people suggested different place from Ginger court, McD (by me 😀 ), Hyderabad House near Lakdi Ka Pul, Mak’s Kitchen etc.. Finally we decided to go to Mak’s kitchen which is beside Temptations in front of Four Seasons. The place was average. Others took soup, it was below average. But biryani was good. It felt like having biryani after a life time. I still remember, the OBH mess once started offering biryani in lunch and dinner daily. I had biryani in lunch and dinner continuously for two weeks during that period. Good old days 😀 In the end the person at Mak’s Kitchen forgot to bill me and somani for the food. Nice 😛
After that we had ice cream at Temptations and headed back to THE holy place on earth, IIIT Hyderabad 🙂
PS : Have a lot to write about.