I dreamed that Priyanka Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi's daughter, became the PM of the country. I was at her inauguration where she had Jayalalitha on one side as her lawyer and best friend and Mayawati on her other side as her personal bodyguard. Everyone was celebrating her victory except me. I was sitting in a corner of the big dinner table and sulking and finally when I couldn't stand it anymore I threw away my dinner thali bringing everything to sudden silence. Everyone is staring at me and Laloo Prasad Yadav asks me, in English, "Kalyan, what is the matter with you? Why are you insulting our sister during a joyous time like this?" And I reply, "Joyous? For whom? This our great nation, built with the blood sweat and tears of our fathers. And I have to see its greatness lowered and see our heritage degraded by this half-Italian mongrel?"
Immediately I hear the patter of feet at Priyanka quickly shuffles down the dinner table and suddenly lops my head off with a sword. She slowly turns to the rest of the country, picks up my head, and says in Hindi "Just so you understand how serious I am, I will say this in Hindi. As your leader, I encourage all of you to question, in a respectful way, any decisions I make. And I swear this to you right now, no topic will ever be off-limits. Except the one that was just under discussion. The penalty that you pay for mentioning my Italian ancestry in a negative fashion will be that I will collect your freakin' head. Now ... is anything else ANY OF YOU WANTS TO SAY? ... I didn't think so."
Showing posts with label thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thoughts. Show all posts
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Daily thoughts
- Winter is here. I wore a jacket today since my shirt is a nice shirt and I didn't want it to get dirty. But it ended up being more than cosmetic. Mom always used to say that Diwali was the trigger for winter and bang on target it's here. Diwali should also be the trigger for good seetaphals, so yeah, I'm excited about that.
- As I listen to my radio each day, I realize that I have gotten addicted to Akshay Kumar's songs. Every morning I listen to the title tracks from either "Singh is King" or "Bhool Bhulaiya" and it totally pumps me up. You can't fight the Kumar man!
- The highway leading to my home is being upgraded. The road is being repaired at a rapid pace. At first I thought I wouldn't be there by the time it's done, but at this rate I should be enjoying this smooth road as early as December. Very exciting.
- As I washed my coloreds during the weekend, the water that I pre-soaked them in was so muddy it scared me. Is this what I'm subjecting my dear clothes to?
- The water heater in my apt has been fixed but the power cuts make it useless. And the power situation is this bad during winter, I hate to think what would happen during the summer. Atleast we've been guaranteed power during Diwali, so that's a nice silver lining.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
The hooker?
After the cricket match today, on the post-game show, one of the commentators said, "If Dhoni wants to continue to be a hooker, then he should do it." I laughed so hard I had milk coming out of my nose (in a manner of speaking)! And then I see this headline for an article on Cricinfo.com
http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/indvaus2008/content/current/story/374506.html
Oh well. Dhoni is considered to be one of the most eligible bachelors in India. Add to that being a hooker and it's probably not a bad career move.
http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/indvaus2008/content/current/story/374506.html
Oh well. Dhoni is considered to be one of the most eligible bachelors in India. Add to that being a hooker and it's probably not a bad career move.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Subway in India: Main sauce
The original plan was to eat with my dad at Subway. Except, the last two times I was in Hyderabad, something or the other kept coming up and I kept missing it. So it was going to do this in Pune.
I had to pay Rs. 10 to park my scooter in the first place to get into this place! What struck me as I looked at the menu was the all the sandwiches were 6" ones. They do have footlongs but they're hidden somewhere in the menu, I had to search for them.
I ordered a Panner Tikka sandwich. It's made similar to the chicken sandwich, where they have seasoned pieces of Panner in small cups and they microwave them and put them in the sandwich. Another thing I learned is that most people just add all the fixins on their sandwiches. Makes sense, Indian being cheap would ask, "What can I get for no extra charge?" and go ahead and add everything they can.
After added the veggies, the guy asked me, "What sauce sir?" So I asked him if he had any Chipotle sauce. He said he didn't. So I was looking at the sauces and he says, "Would you like to have some main sauce sir?" I looked at him, "Main sauce, what's in the main sauce?"
"It's main sauce sir. It comes with the sandwich."
"Yeah I know, but what's in the main sauce."
Now it was his turn to stare at me.
"Sir, with the Paneer sandwich the regular sauce is the main sauce."
This was rapidly turning into an Abbot and Costello routine. Finally I looked at the sauce and it was green in color. "Do you mean MINT sauce?" I asked him.
"Yes sir."
"OK! I'll have some of that."
"OK sir, any more sauces?"
"What do you have?"
"We have Southwest sauce."
"What?? I just asked you if you had Chipotle sauce."
"Yes sir, this is like Chipotle sauce."
I didn't want to argue anymore about how the name of the sauce is "Southwest Chipotle". So I just asked him to pack it up. Interestingly he packed the two halves of the footlong in seperate packages. Like it was inconceivable to him that any one person would eat the whole footlong.
Hmm, maybe that's a sign.
I had to pay Rs. 10 to park my scooter in the first place to get into this place! What struck me as I looked at the menu was the all the sandwiches were 6" ones. They do have footlongs but they're hidden somewhere in the menu, I had to search for them.
I ordered a Panner Tikka sandwich. It's made similar to the chicken sandwich, where they have seasoned pieces of Panner in small cups and they microwave them and put them in the sandwich. Another thing I learned is that most people just add all the fixins on their sandwiches. Makes sense, Indian being cheap would ask, "What can I get for no extra charge?" and go ahead and add everything they can.
After added the veggies, the guy asked me, "What sauce sir?" So I asked him if he had any Chipotle sauce. He said he didn't. So I was looking at the sauces and he says, "Would you like to have some main sauce sir?" I looked at him, "Main sauce, what's in the main sauce?"
"It's main sauce sir. It comes with the sandwich."
"Yeah I know, but what's in the main sauce."
Now it was his turn to stare at me.
"Sir, with the Paneer sandwich the regular sauce is the main sauce."
This was rapidly turning into an Abbot and Costello routine. Finally I looked at the sauce and it was green in color. "Do you mean MINT sauce?" I asked him.
"Yes sir."
"OK! I'll have some of that."
"OK sir, any more sauces?"
"What do you have?"
"We have Southwest sauce."
"What?? I just asked you if you had Chipotle sauce."
"Yes sir, this is like Chipotle sauce."
I didn't want to argue anymore about how the name of the sauce is "Southwest Chipotle". So I just asked him to pack it up. Interestingly he packed the two halves of the footlong in seperate packages. Like it was inconceivable to him that any one person would eat the whole footlong.
Hmm, maybe that's a sign.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Coming to terms
"Always leave yourself an out" - Rounders
Well I ran out of my outs sometime in the middle of July 2008. You know those scenes in scary movies when someone walks gingerly into a creepy room and suddenly the door behind them slams shut, and soon all the windows and other doors slam shut too? And the person stares blankly for a while? That was me for a whole week. And then, in the midst of having a fight, I said some words which were repeated back to me - "I know that in 20 years this is not going to make a difference but ..." Well, the rest is not important. As long as I know that this is temporary, it doesn't matter much. So I very begrudgingly came to terms with the fact that I'll be moving to Pune for an year.
As I write this, the balance has shifted from "bad things about this trip" to "good things about this trip". I fully intend to enjoy this trip and hope to come back a better person.
Well I ran out of my outs sometime in the middle of July 2008. You know those scenes in scary movies when someone walks gingerly into a creepy room and suddenly the door behind them slams shut, and soon all the windows and other doors slam shut too? And the person stares blankly for a while? That was me for a whole week. And then, in the midst of having a fight, I said some words which were repeated back to me - "I know that in 20 years this is not going to make a difference but ..." Well, the rest is not important. As long as I know that this is temporary, it doesn't matter much. So I very begrudgingly came to terms with the fact that I'll be moving to Pune for an year.
As I write this, the balance has shifted from "bad things about this trip" to "good things about this trip". I fully intend to enjoy this trip and hope to come back a better person.
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