The last day at work

Boy, I'll be glad if I can just hold it together for a few more hours. It's been hard enough already, the packing, the planning has been overwhelming. But my team is determined to make it hard to leave. They got me bouquet of flowers. They called for a quick meeting and sat me down to share my thoughts. A little awkward to share my thoughts on demand, but I think I did a decent job. We got a group pic taken as well. My close chums in the team had bought me a jacket earlier which they got me to pick in advance.

Then all the senior staff in the office, and my team mates came out to a farewell lunch. 16 of them! I was really touched. Of course, there were awkward moments when they got me to speak about everyone and the good times in the office and so on. I'm not a big fan of these group emotional scenes so I was squirming in my seat. Particularly because there were a few there who were new to the office and a few I wasn't quite close with. But still, I appreciated them showing up. Later tonight we're going out for drinks even though I protested against it, and I'm told I'll be getting a gift there as well!

Overall it has been a sharp contrast to my last day in Pune. There I had to leave in a hurry, didn't have time to say my proper goodbyes. The journey from the office then was awkward as well involving two suitcases packed in a hurry, stuffed on a borrowed scooter, a tearful colleague and a smoke-filled bus. Today I got a royal sendoff in the office car taking me all the way to my apt to let me pack in peace. And while I am still a little behind on my packing as I type this up, I take joy in knowing that it won't be as bad the Pune experience.

The last weekend in Chandigarh

I was very happy that my last weekend in Chandigarh ended up being very "typical". I didn't just sit at home, or even do a whole lot of packing activities. Instead I did a lot of fun activities. Saturday morning I got ready very early. So I decided to have breakfast at the temple. There is only one time that this dhaba near the temple serves that I enjoy - samosa channa/samosa chat - but this place makes it better than any other place in Chandigarh. So I had my breakfast there and for good measure decided to visit the temple too. Normally this temple gets very busy during the weekends but that day I just walked right upto the deity. I even sat in the temple under the Sun and read my book for an hour. In the afternoon I took a bus to the main city and walked up to the rose garden. Unlike the last time I visited this place, the roses were in full bloom now and so were the couples! This is one area where Chandigarh scores over Pune - there are many more parks per capita here for couples to hang out together, or even for children to play.

That evening I was invited by my lunch lady to what I was told would be a "holi with flowers" but turned out to be a bhajan. And what was worse, she wanted me there only to shoot videos. Even so I didn't mind but my camera batteries were low. So I asked her to buy me some batteries which I'd pay her back for - she said she couldn't. So screw her, I shot barely a couple of minutes before my camera died, and I took off soon after! Then I got home, freshened up and went out for dinner and a movie with my team and our boss. Dinner was good. We watched "My name is Khan" which I really enjoyed much to my surprise.

On Sunday I went to the Rajasthani mela that was going on in the city. That was fun. The food in particular was very interesting. There was a dosa-type dish called chilla. The jalebis was fantastic - thin, and slightly chewy. Like I said, I was glad I got to do all these things before leaving.

The "lame duck" phase starts

Six more days to go in this office and it shows. I have no projects on my table right now. The only thing I'm expected to do from now till I leave is train the new guy and maybe some administrative stuff. Today in particular I sat around doing nothing. It really sucks. I fully understood the meaning of the term "lame duck". You're no longer an integral cog of the machine, the machine just goes on functioning without you - hell, you're transferring the duties to the newer cogs. Well I just hope to keep my dignity intact these last few days and make it out on a positive note.

Universal religion (Haridwar series)

You know how in big cities you run into a very heterogeneous crowd? It was like that out there in Haridwar and Hrishikesh. On one end of the spectrum we saw a bunch of foreigners (White folks) with a bunch of cameras around their necks.

(It came to my attention later that one reason we saw a lot more foreigners in Hrishikesh rather than at Haridwar was because of a certain weed that is found in abundance here. Apparently this weed grows all over the place in the mountainous regions but not so much in the valley. So these foreigners come here in search of this weed. What they do this weed I don't know. But yeah, apparently they're all fans of this weed.)

Then we saw the local as usual. We saw a Gujrati family sitting in front of us while we waited for the ropeway car. There was a Bengali family of a couple of grandparents and their teenage granddaughter. Then there was a group of loud Telugus taking pictures of a sadhu at a temple. The bus taking us back from Haridwar to Chandigarh was half-full of Kannidigas! (These guys actually got off the bus well before Chandigarh; I wonder what small village or town they all are settled in.) And we heard bits of Tamil and Malayalam as well during this trip. A very feeling to see all these people here.

The challenge of the "shocker" (Haridwar series)

When I told my brother I would be visiting Haridwar, he challenged me to get a picture of one of the sadhus throwing up a "shocker" sign. I was very intrigued by this challenge. So almost from the time I landed I started trying to get this picture. I knew that no one out here knew what that sign would mean, so that wasn't the concern. It was just that most of these people (to me) seemed to be genuinely religious. And I couldn't get myself to trick them into throwing up a rude sign. It would have been much easier if I saw what I felt was a "poser".

We saw a hardcore sadhu - ash-covered, almost naked - sitting near the Ganga at Haridwar. I must admit I couldn't gather the stones to go talk to him. But when I told my friend what I had in mind, he walked right up to the sadhu and asked him if we could take his picture. He said yes. Then he asked him if he wouldn't mind putting up his fingers "like this". He politely smiled and refused. Fail!

The other sadhus we saw were either rushing along somewhere or, like I said, sincerely praying. The closest I got was when we met this guy dressed up as Hanuman. He was "blessing" people for a small fee and I knew I could easily talk him into throwing up the sign. He did and I got my picture.

The religious convention (Haridwar Series)

You know how at a medical convention you have a lot of vendors related to the medical field trying to sell their stuff? There was a similar scene out there in Haridwar with babas selling themselves instead. One was offering yoga classes, another meditation. But the best ones of all were offering to solve global warming and cure AIDS (not kidding). It was just pathetic. But hey, you gotta sell yourself to your target demographic. (Someone's dying to add "Marketers 3, Customers 0" in the comments).

And of course, keeping with the disgusting theme of "soliciting" visitors to their meta-temples that we saw in Jammu, here too there were a bunch of "priests" shouting at us, asking us to pay their temple a visit. And while you are in their corner, you were asked to donate something, preferably a C-note based on the not-so-subtle hints they were giving. You see, in S. India that stuff won't fly. People are a lot smarter or atleast a lot more cynical. Thank you N. India for turning me off of temples for the foreseeable future.

Visiting Haridwar and Hrishikesh (Haridwar series)

This weekend I visited Haridwar, possibly my last trip during my Chandigarh stay. It was a fun little trip. The cities are pretty close to Chandigarh, 5 hours in fact. (That is too far to be able to go there on a day trip, and too close to have good quality buses, like sleepers, plying from Chandigarh.) Very little planning went into it. My motivation was primarily to just spend some time under the sun and on the banks of the Ganga so I would have been satisfied just going there, reading a book and coming back. I was however counting on good weather, which was granted to me. Just perfect conditions to explore a couple of cities.

Both these cities are on the banks of the river Ganga. We visited Hrishikesh first, which is upriver, probably the cleanest we ever got to see Ganga. Lakshman Jhoola, the "Apartment Complex of the Gods", Ram Jhoola and got to spend some time just sitting on the banks of Ganga. I took my only dip in the river over here, somehow taking a bath in front of a ton of people in Haridwar didn't appeal to me. Haridwar was a lot more hectic and a lot more "commercial" than Hrishikesh. We did visit a couple of temples that were up on hills. This time we didn't try to play cute (like for Vaishno Devi in Jammu) by climbing them, we just took the ropeway.

It was interesting visiting a place that I last visited about 20 years ago and trying to remember stuff. Like that picture on the Lakshman Jhoola. The dip in Ganga at Haridwar and visiting the temple up on the hill. Faint memories from ages ago. Still, it was very relaxing to visit those places and see those sights. For a last trip, it wasn't too shabby.