Roundup

Not quite writing too many poems recently. After a three month break (that's one quarter!!), I came up with this. Already had the pic in mind actually, a pic that reminds me of some scenes in the movie - The Thin Red Line.

War movie freak that I am :)

After The Thrill Is Gone

This song's playing on my mind. It's by the Eagles.

Same dances in the same old shoes
Some habits that you just can't lose
There's no telling what a man might lose,
After the thrill is gone

The flame rises but it soon descends
Empty pages and a frozen pen
You're not quite lovers and you're not quite friends
After the thrill is gone, oh,
After the thrill is gone

What can you do when your dreams come true
And it's not quite like you planned?
What have you done to be losing the one
You held it so tight in your hand well

Time passes and you must move on,
Half the distance takes you twice as long
So you keep on singing for the sake of the song
After the thrill is gone
After the thrill is gone

You're afraid you might fall out of fashion
And you're feeling cold and small
Any kind of love without passion
That ain't no kind of lovin' at all, well

Same dances in the same old shoes
You get too careful with the steps you choose
you don't care about winning but you don't want to lose
After the thrill is gone
After the thrill is gone
After the thrill is gone, oh
After the thrill is gone

It's Been A Long Time

since I dropped a line. A lot of things happened meanwhile.

1. MBM is planned. Go check it out. And if you can, be there.
2. Introducing a new blogger to the fold. Great friend, great writer.
3. Had occasion to go to CST in Mumbai yesterday, the rains happened and I travelled by local train. Managed to take lotsa pics. They are here. I think I am becoming some kinda specialist in high-speed photography.

Loads of work happening and a few other updates as well, which I shall post from time to time. Working on a rainy Mumbai collection now :)

BOM-BANG-BOM-DEL-BOM

22nd May
I left home at 7.30 am for the 1030 flight to Bangalore. I reached the airport quite early, thankfully Kingfisher has tele-check in, so I had reserved my favourite window seat already. The ground crew seemed a little green though and they took quite some time with the other passengers too - to do routine stuff like check in the baggage and that kinda stuff. The same thought was echoed by other passengers too.

The flight took off on time. The seats were much more comfortable than other airliners I have travelled in (Jet/Sahara/IA/Alliance Air). Leg room and width were much better and I settled in quite comfortably.

We were greeted with a pouch that had a small keychain with the Funliner on the other end (Funliner is what the Kingfisher planes have been branded as). It also had a pair of headphones, a pen and some candy along with paraphernalia. There was an in-flight entertainment console that kept displaying our current location vis-a-vis various cities etc. It also told us the temperature outside, distance to be covered, current speed etc... the usual stuff. And then Vijay Mallya appeared on screen and gave a nice talk on how thankful he was for us giving him our business. Yana Gupta arrived next, demonstrating the use of life jackets and stuff. Pretty much international standards.

The food was a surprise too. They served paneer rolls et al. Also had some coke. No, drinks were not allowed on domestic flights (Yana Gupta looked sad when she said that).

There were some 5 video channels and 10 radio channels to choose from. I switched to Rock (on Ch 4) and Jim Morrison was humming 'Riders On The Storm' there. They had a pretty decent selection of songs, including 'House Of The Rising Sun' and 'All Night Long' among others. So that helped me pass my time inflight.

Landing was smooth (it was an A320 after all!). The stewardesses (no males) were smiley enough, eye-candy as they were. Hopefully, we won't hear of any 'incidents' in the sky.

Post landing, I met my friends who were at the airport to meet me. Parked my stuff at a friend's place in Indira Nagar and went for a movie-cum-lunch-cum-tea-et-al at PVR in Koramangala. Got home by 10, had dinner and played guitar for a while. Was nice.

23 - 27
I shifted to my hotel on Residency Road, shuttled between office and Residency Road/MG Road. I did manage to have dinner at some decent places. I can't recall all the names now, but they included Earthen Oven, Ebony, Pizza Hut and China Pearl (with the gang) on Friday night. That was a lotta fun.

28
Time to leave for Mumbai. Had lunch at Koshy's. Got late and reached the airport JUST in time. Encountered the same, slow check-in procedures with Kingfisher at Bangalore airport. The food was the same (and not half as tasty), and the songs on radio were the same. So that kinda lost its charm. Also, I didn't get the key chain this time :( I got a chance to click photos this time though. :)

It was kinda cloudy and there was a lot of turbulence. I was too busy snapping pics to notice though.

I reached home at 8 in the evening. Half dead.

29 May
Left for the airport again, at 6.30 am for the Delhi flight. I was flying Air Sahara (both ways) this time. Realized how roomy Kingfisher was. Missed the radio stuff too :P But then I did take more photos inflight.

Had a good time at Delhi. Met Bebe. We were at India Habitat Centre (pity no cameras allowed there). Then we went to ISKCON and made our way to NOIDA to wind up the day. I got back home at 2 am. The return flight was PRETTY BUMPY. Air Sahara put us in a 50-seater, so what do you expect!

And then? Back to work! What else?

I really didn't get a chance to go around Bangalore. It was my first trip there. But then, whatever I did see didn't really strike me as very different from Mumbai. Only thing - it would rain like hell in the evenings. So that was kinda crazy. So I saw the same traffic jams and waterlogging that I am used to seeing in Mumbai. So the 10 kms that separated my hotel at Residency Road from the office in Hosur Road would take at least an hour to negotiate.

I intend to spend some more time in Bangalore and probably visit Mysore and Coorg on my next visit. I guess it will have to be a personal visit though.

Here's one more set of pics. Taken 'in flight'.

No pics of Bangalore really and I don't wanna put up the office pics here. It was too late in the night or too rushed in the morning to get any decent pictures. Plus, it reminded me of Mumbai so I didn't see the point!

The previous set of pics (Moto) was basically my first experiment on the digicam with delayed exposure photography. Sure, a tripod would have given a more 'professional' look to it. However, I don't have one and I don't think a tripod would have made much of a difference in a moving rickshaw!! So keeping it on the lap (as I did) was pretty much the best solution right then.

Back

I am back from Bangalore (and Delhi). The trip was short, hectic and also a lot of fun. Will be posting in detail about that later.

For now, check out Moto.