The post was supposed to come up at 12:00 am IST but close proximity to the PM has been the cause of the delay.

A picture is worth a thousand words..

Happy birthday bestie :) ..cheers ..3 of 'em

Elephanta island, Elephanta caves

During my last trip home/Mumbai, I visited Elephanta caves. The trip started from the Gateway of India, from where we took a ferry.

















Parde mein rehne do, parda na uthao...

One can see curtain like things hanging down on the right side of the Gateway of India. Thats coz renovation work was going on.

















The 3rd from right was our ferry

















Parking lot! There were other lots of ferries awaiting their turns

















There were other cool n fancy James Bond-type boats too

















October 12, 1492 was when Columbus discovered Amrica. This is the photo of the ship he sailed on. Yes, I am serious. See, it even has the name Columbus written on it(enlarge the pic). What more proof do you want :D

















We came across this really huge ship. It had a No Smoking sign on the deck. Dunno why..

















The side view of the huge ship

It took us about 30-40 minutes to reach the Elephanta island. A drop-point has been made for the ferry. Its a 10 min walk from the drop-point to the main island area. Or if someone is too lazy or acting too sissy like me coz of the sun, one can take the toy-train.

















This toy train was also used in the Bollywood flick 'One Two Three' (Advisable not to watch the movie if you have not heard of it. Somethings are better left unseen :) )

















This is where the main island area starts. Quite a few stalls for snacks, cold drinks were there.





















This is the photo with appropriate explanations. Enlarge the pic for better understanding.

We had to climb a lot of steep steps to reach the caves. On the way, we saw some of these creatures:

















I don't know what these birds are

















A chweet lil baby monkey wrapped by her not-so-chweet mother monkey

















A few more monkeys

















Another monkey doing some monkeygiri

















Inside the Elephanta caves

















Phoreigner taking photus

















Carvings inside the caves. Quite a few were broken

















More carvings
















A grand sculpture

















A pic with mom-dad in front of the sculpture. Pretty huge.

There are about 5 caves on the island. Following are pics of other caves

















The mouth of the cave

















Inside the cave.

















Me, posing in front of one of the caves


















Find me if you can!

We were really exhausted after all the cave-seeing in the scorching heat. We decided to eat at the MTDC restaurant on the island. The food was very ok-types. Dosas seemed the safest bet. Mom was a little disappointed that I had to eat dosa-idlis there too. coz I eat it almost everyday in namma Bengaluru.

















The view from the hotel was lovely.

On our way back, we saw boats lined in a row.

















Notice the different flags on the boats.

















That was one huge ship!

















The Gateway and the Taj hotel

















Me, the Gateway and the Taj hotel

















Back to safer lands. Thats the Tendulkar's on the right side in the pic. Gotta dine there the next time I go to Mumbai.

PS: Formatting this post was real irritating.

Kutte!

Dharmendar paaji used to say to the Bollywood goons 'Kutte! kamine! main tera khoon pi jaaunga'

Well, some of the poplulace of the fairer sex seems to have taken that reference to men quite literally. coz every now and then, one reads/hears statements like 'All men are dogs!'

Maybe, maybe they are dogs.. Err, I mean we are dogs. But then the thing to remember is that even dogs are of different breeds.

Dogs are not all the same. The same goes with men.

Period.


And, after all, dogs are probably one of the most loyal, faithful creatures ;)

Got an email having the following pic of the Gateway of India:

Truly a sight to be in awe of!! I am assuming the pic would have been taken from the Taj hotel that is opposite to the Gateway.

Kaali waali Black dal

Yesterday night, I want to take dinner at Min Mini Punjabi Dhaba. Now it is no fancy 5 star restaurant where Kareena n Saif might be spotted cuddling in a corner. Haan, Kareena ke ghar pe kaam karte Ramu kaka ke banaras ki mausi ka beta shayad dikh jaye.

To as we entered the dhaba, I could see printouts stuck all over the walls saying 'Deviced rates'. Now if it would have said 'Reviced rates' I might have understood that the library collection of the dhaba owner was lacking the 'Wren and Martin'. But yeh deviced rate kya hua. Did he mean that since the printouts were an output of the printer, which is a device, an electronic device, the rates are deviced rates?

As we occupied a table, a duplicate of Keshto Mukherjee came and handed us the menu. And before allowing us to have a look at the menu he started saying 'Aloo gobi, rajma, baingan bharta, yellow dal, black dal'. He kept on saying it again and again until we had to frantically gesture to him to stop his nonstop rajdhani. Now I am no Sanjeev Kapoor so I wanted to know the ingredients of this black dal.

Me: Boss, yeh black dal mein dal kaunsi aayegi
*pause*
He: kaali waali.

It was one of those you-had-to-be-there moments. People on all tables were in splits. The kind of loud, uncontrolled, non-stop laughter.

After placing the order, we scanned the menu which had a lot more items than the 5 which the Keshto Mukherjee duplicate was parotting. We had even more laughs. Menu mein English ka bhai-baap ek kar diya tha.

Shayad aisi chotti chotti baaton mein hi zindagi ka asli mazza hai. These are moments that one will not get in a 5 istar restaurant. 5 istar mein to one finds highly fancy names in the menu card jo shayad Queen Elizabeth ke bhi palle na pade. aur saala bill dekhke to vaat lagti hai. wallet hava ke maafik halka ho jaata hai.

apun ko halka hoke udna nahi hai. coz I am a very down to earth person. to Mr Keshto Mukherjee duplicate, yeh main aaya.. aaj black dal mein kaunsi dal daalne waale hai tu?

Mera pehla pehla tag

The rules of the tag:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

The books that could not be:
My eyes fell upon 'The one minute manager' that was lying on my office desk. But alas. The authors of the book did not have enough thoughts to show-off with more than a 123 pages. Looks like the tag isn't as simple as it seems.


So then I decided to try out my luck with the stack of Playboys lying in my drawer. Considering the fact that I was supposed to pick up the nearest book, I popped the issue that was lying on the top of the stack. Basically, that is how the concept of stack works. You push things on the top and you pop things from the top. It is called LIFO - Last In First Out. All right, enough of digression. Lets get back on track. I opened the issue and realized the irony. I was supposed to pick sentences form the book. How would I get sentences in Playboy. It certainly would not be so popular if they started putting sentences in it. The only writing one can find is in the form of tattoos on the bodies of all the you-know-who*.

(The tip:
This world is all about acting smart. You see I strategically keep books like 'The one minute manager' and others on my office desk to impress people. The real stuff lies safely locked in my drawer.)

So then what to do. Hmm. Aha! Dimaag ki batti jal gayi! Apun ki company mein library hain jahan pe kitaabein hoti hai. I found this the nearest in the library:

I had read this one a year or so back and remains one of the most worthwhile reads. I opened page 123.

The 5th sentence:
Then along came the triple convergence.

The 3 sentences that follow:
The Berlin Wall came down, the Berlin mall opened up, and suddenly some 3 billion people who had been behind walls walked onto the flattened global piazza.
Here's what happened in round numbers: According to a November 2004 study by Harvard University economist Richard B. Freeman, in 1985 "the global economic world" comprised North America, Western Europe, Japan, as well as chunks of Latin America, Africa, and the countries of East Asia.
The total population of this global economic world, taking part in international trade and commerce, said Freeman, was about 2.5 billion people.

The tagger acknowledged:
stupiodaur, I acknowledge you.

The tagees tagged:
sanchit
adee
Thomas L Friedman - the author of The World Is Flat
Ken Blanchard - author of The One Minute Manager
Spencer Johnson - author of The One Minute Manager
Pamela Anderson - owing to her association with Playboy
Anybody who has a book nearby

(Other people/reptiles whom I might have tagged have already been tagged.)


* I assume all HP** fans would have thought of Lord Voldemort. Innocent gentlemen like me would have happily imagined the correct things :D And the same innocent gentleman would have been a bit disappointed when after uploading the image of 'The one minute manager', I did not follow it up with those of the mentioned magazine.
** I assume all techies would have thought of Hewlett Packard.

public IPL getIplThoughts(Cheer cheerleasers)-II

The title has been named so to maintain uniformity with this one. The IPL has ended. So here go some more random thoughts about it:

• First of all, lets get some cello tape to stick on to Krisnamachari Srikkanth's mouth. The guy speaks way toooo much. He could have easily played Kareena in Jab We Mate.

• Aamir Sohail, STILL, as a commentator, sucks bigtime.

• It literally hurts to see anyone other than Harsha present the pre/post-match analysis. Charu Sharma standards (of course without Mandira) would be acceptable, but definitely not these Sprite, Close-up type dudes and dudesses. As the Sprite punch line goes, 'seedhi baat, no bakwaas, clear hai!'; this bande bandiyan have a total clear dimaag and all they do is 'no baat, seedhi bakwaas'.

• A captain is as good as his team. But there are some exceptions. After being highly unsuccessful during his career as a bowler on the pitches of India, Warne brilliantly led the underdogs to a championship win.
  

• Pee Pee*, as they call him, is the most annoying batsman to watch. The 4 footer toddler can hardly life the bat before the ball arrives.
  

• The catching in the tournament was appalling. Even Geoffrey's mom could have fared better.
  

• So goes with the umpiring.
  

• I was glad that neither Shah rukh's nor Priety's team won. I could not tolerate the sight of those two on a cricket field.
  

Mr. Vijay Mallya, if you happen to be reading this, I would like to let you know that my grandfather would like to play for your team the next season. If you can pick Sunil Joshi, then I think my grandpa too should be no problem.

*Pee Pee stands for Parthiv Patel.

buon compleanno

Happy budday dudey.

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May you get lots of hugs from

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and lots of kisses from

Demolition at Roland Garros

6-1 6-3 6-0. Four successive French open titles. At an age of 22. Rafa truly is the champion of clay. And at 6'1", he really does stand tall between Federer and the French open title. Federer will now await his turn to show his dominance later this month. At the greener pastures.

Dedicated to this blog-I

I believe my relation with this blog has grown deep enough to the level that I dedicate a something to it. So today I dedicate a joke to this blog, which is in sync with the blog title and header. The joke goes like this:

Me (to everyone who happens to read this): Zindagi ka safar bada lamba hai. Aao, saath mil kar chalte hai. Kuch tum chalo, kuch hum chale. Phir,................ rickshaw kar lenge :D

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Haan, duniya ki saari gaaliya de di ho, to ab ek smile bhi de do mamu. Hans do mamu. Hanse ne ke paihe nahi lagte. Koi Qute si kudi yeh same PJ forward karti to hanste na. Reply bhi karte na. To comment kar ke do chaar gaali hi de do.

Carrom ramvanu, juice pivanu, majja ni life.
(Solitaire ramvanu, coffee pivani, majja ni life.)

PeeA$$: To all Qute si kudis, feminists and Qute si feminist kudis, do not label me as an MCP due to my usage of 'mamu'. Its just that I am not used to writing in a nonsexist language. So you also feel free to leave Qute si comments.

PeePeeA$$: To those who land here through Google search for the word 'sex', sorry to disappoint you.

The 3 mistakes of my weekend

Mistake #1: Spent 95 bucks and bought the book.

Mistake #2: Continued reading the book even after the first 100 pages.

Mistake #3: Finished the entire book.

5 point someone was good fun to read, One night @ a call centre failed to impress, and this one has disappointed.