After the week that I’ve had it’s only fair that I enjoy myself on Saturday night with my two best friends. A couple of days back Anil had called me to finalize on our plans for the evening. It had been way too long since the last meeting between Anil, Madhu & myself. We plan and plan but something or the other always comes up and either one of us is unable to come that evening. But a few weeks is way too long between best friends meeting each other and when they had suggested this evening I was sure that I would make it.

So post work the three of us made plans to meet up somewhere. Kakkanad and a bar over there was discussed but the distance was too much of an issue. So we kept thinking about meeting up somewhere in the city itself and we discussed about possibilities on a 3 way conference call. Finally the roof top garden at Mercy Estate in Ravipuram was decided upon and we agreed to meet there around 7:00 or so. I had to work uptil 6:15 pm and then made my way to the city. A little traffic jam at a couple places meant that I got delayed by about 30 minutes and reached the bar at about 7:30 pm. I took the elevator to the 5th floor roof top garden bar and restaurant and saw that other than Anil & Madhu, the place was empty.

Within a few minutes the place began to fill up just as a Saturday night should be. They had already ordered 2 whiskeys & 2 brandies and 2 vodkas as well as a soda and a 7up. I poured some 7up into my vodka glass and sat back. Dry chilly beef, omelets, salads, chilly beef, finger fingers and sweet corn chicken soup followed. We chatted a lot and laughed a bit and swore against the assholes in our office who make our lives miserable for us. We made rude comments and stories about the semi-nude statue in the premises. We tried having chappaty and chicken roast at the end but we were quite full. However, not too full for desert and we ordered ice creams. Then we  came down after paying our expensive dinner and while Madhu went on his bike, Anil and I got into an auto. After dropping him at the bus stop, as he was heading for Thrissur, I came home.

I’m feeling a lot more relaxed but tired and sleepy so I might just go to sleep now.

Yes sir, she’s done it again. She’s reached another milestone in my blog, as humble as my blog is. I get showered with weekly comments by none other than the wonderful, gorgeous, awesome Meleah.

Back in February of this year I had posted as to the fact that Meleah had posted 300 comments in my blog, not only being the first to reach that figure but leading the charge all the way. 300 comments is a huge deal for me; it was like reaching the 1000 career point mark for an NHL player or 500 goals for a professional footballer (soccer player) – well for me it is anyway.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, she has hit he 400 comment mark. I feel so good that this lovely woman chooses to read my blog on a regular basis and sticks loyally by my writing. Thank you so much Meleah. What ever would happen to my blog without you as my personal cheerleader!

Today I went along with the rest of team to a mosque (not inside but just waited outside) in Kalloor and then to the house of one of my team members. This was not a joyous occasion; far from it. This was possibly the worst reasons we could ever have to go to someone’s house. The death of an infant.

His sister has delivered a baby girl 10 days ago. At the time the doctors at the hospital said that they wanted to keep her for a day just for observations. That became a concern 24 hours later as they came back and said that there was something troubling near the baby’s liver and that they wanted a specialist to look at the baby in 2 days. They took the baby girl to another hospital and the results looked horrifying – it could be cancer and if so it could be fatal! The family was devastated but they kept this news from the mother of the baby.

They wanted to do some blood tests but had to postpone it for a day or too as the poor baby was too weak. Then it was a wait for the results to come in four days later while the family agonized over the helpless little girl whose only sin it seemed was to be born on this undeserving planet. And then it was confirmed – it was cancer and it had already spread throughout the little baby’s system and she was due to succumb to its effects. She was put on a ventilator and this morning the doctors said that it was a maximum of this evening or by tomorrow morning that she would breath her last. It was only the ventilator that was keeping her alive. My team member was devastated and crying. I could only imagine what his sister and brother-in-law must be going through.

Well this afternoon at around 1:45 pm the baby died, another victim that cancer has claimed. 10 days only in our world. So I asked permission to take a company cab, put the rest of the team in it and we went to pay our respects. That’s the least that I can do.

My then 6 year old cousin Sree was tricked by his older brother and told on his first trip to India from the UK that “all 6 year old boys in India have to go to prison”! This weighed heavily on poor Sree’s brain and although he was quite happy to meet and spend time with so many cousins in India, he was worried.

After a few days of getting to know me and other cousins, he finally asked us “Do they make you do hard labour in Indian prison?”

Ofcourse we all had a hearty laugh over that!

Another one was at my friend’s house a few years ago. His twin cousins, who were about 11 years old were watching tv – the discovery channel as it turned out to be. He and I were sitting out in the front porch and chatting. After a while they both came in and asked him “Was Jesus also born by….artificial inseperation”? The episode they had watched was on artificial insemination!

I laughed my ass off as my red-faced friend scolded his cousins and chased them into their room!

As stated in a post a few days ago I lost another member of my team. This one hurts the most. We joined the company around the same time (she in the 3d week of December, 2006 and I in the 3rd week of January) and have been in the same team since then. We were teammates until I took over the team in July 2008. From that time onwards she has been my backup and the heart & soul of the team. She has been a source of inspiration, friendship and won the admiration, respect & affection of almost everyone who has ever interacted with her.

The rest of the team and I have taken her leaving us very badly. I mean, she left because she got a wonderful opportunity in another company and further her career as well but that doesn’t make her absence feel any lesser. On her last working day / her farewell, I was in Bangalore for the GB training. I jumped at the chance to not be there while her farewell was done – I just didn’t want everyone to see me bawling like a little girl! The rest of the team and she were crying a lot.

We are missing her charm, her sense of  humour, her wisdom, her personality, her advice and her love. The team and I are going to find it very hard to get over the fact that her smiling face is not there to greet us everyday. But we wish her well. I’m going to try and get her to join the rest of us for an early dinner on my birthday in 2 weeks.

This is the last team photo with her in it. She’s sitting in the front row, right in the middle. All the best Ajeeba for your new role in the new company.

See this cute little angelic looking figurine.  It’s my little girl. My little angel.

This cutie was given to me as a gift from my second in command. She is or rather was my backup for 2 years. She joined along with me in the same profile and then when I got promoted she became my right hand…woman. She is an extremely efficient & wonderfully talented person and she is also one of my closest friends and well wishers. And now she has a chance of an excellent opportunity and career growth with benefits. So she is leaving the organization and taking up a better profile in another company.

She truly deserves what she is being offered and a whole lot more. The only person who does not believe in her capabilities is herself. I always tell her that she is worth a whole lot more but she never listens to me. Well atleast now she is getting a good profile where she can show her worth. But am I really gonna miss her. She’s been a solid rock, a pillar of the team and she helped mold the newer members so well. I am so proud of her but sad that she has to move. But I am happy for her getting a good profile and a fatter pay check. All the very best.

Saying goodbye to people you care about is never easy, especially when you may never cross paths with them again in the near future. Several people who I got to know during the last 3.5 years or more have recently moved away from my office or city and the chances of me seeing them are highly remote, given the current way of living, wherein you never get time to just catch up with an old friend.

I have asked myself this question time and time again – “Why is it that you cannot find time to keep in touch with your old friends? The ones who swore along with you that you would never be more than a phone call apart?” I ask you, how many high school friends of yours do you keep in touch with on a regular basis?

I don’t even have the phone numbers of most of my old buddies, several who were closer to me than any brother could. Don’t even ask about the girls, I don’t know if any of them have kids or got divorced or married. Seven years after leaving my 10 grade behind me, I used to keep in touch with a girl called Jesna, since my E-commerce class was quite close to the store where she worked part time keeping account. But I was never that close to her, still we managed to have a chat every other day or so for almost 6 months. Then no news.

One of my closest friends in the whole wide world (well from the age of 11 to 22 atleast) was the one that hurts me the most. We had a huge fight because of the asshole she called her boyfriend, and now her husband, and just like than in the space of a half-hour, we killed eleven years of friendship. I still have nightmares of that, cause I miss her terribly at times. I think she tried to get in touch with me when she got married, which was 3 after we fought, but I was unreachable at the time. I hope she is ok and I hope that jerkoff is treating her well. Cause he once broke her heart and really made her upset and it was me that she turned to. I was there for her and it was on my shoulder that she cried on. But some people never learn. I hope she never gets to regret her decision.

A couple of weeks ago, on a Friday evening, as I left the office I was to join a member of my team and 3 former members of our department. We had all joined together back in January of 2007 and now the 3 of them work in different cities. The guy, Neil, now works from Kannur, Shalina works & lives in Trivandrum & Vidya has just come back from studying in Australia. So we’d planned this for a few days and finally the day was decided. Now we needed a place to meet up and have a little dinner.

After a few days, Ajeeba (who is still in my team), found out that a new restaurant based on the Kentucky Fried chicken concept had opened up on SRM Road. It was called Chicknik and was quite and spacious. So we would meet there. After a review with the clients, I left to join the four of them. I was quite late and by the time I reached they were almost done with dinner and had ordered for me. As I sauntered in, I saw the four of them sitting at a big table, relaxing after a nice meal of fried chicken, buns, cream cheese & mayo. I joined in and quickly sat down and greeted everyone. I went to freshen up and then quickly ate my meal as I wanted to talk with the 4 of them. The time I got to spend with them was short but it was worth it. I miss all of them a lot.

The restaurant was a nice setup and quite but classy. I really liked the place and their layout was nice. I think it’s a good option if you want a quite peaceful place to eat some chicken and have a good conversation with your buddies or with family.

A couple of weeks ago, when I came to know that the current AM for Administration in our office had resigned, I asked the center head and the AM for HR if they would be looking out for a replacement from outside or would they want to fill the gap from within. At that time, they weren’t sure but they told me to send in a resume if I had anyone to recommend. And since my close friend Madhu currently works for a company as AM Admin, I thought he’d fit the bill.

He was working for a company in Paroor but wasn’t very happy there. Sure the post was that of AM but he wasn’t getting the kind of pay that he would get here. So I called him up and asked him if he was interested. Having worked for a BPO or 3, he knew most of the requirements and what the role would demanded. He was keen on getting into a company like the one I work for. I filled him in on the pros & cons and asked him to email me his resume.

Well, I circulated the resume and yesterday a Sr. Manager of Administration, who was in town, met me and asked me about Madhu. And today they asked me if I could get him into the office for an interview. Madhu came in around 5:30 pm and attended a 90 minute interview. This is round one and if he gets through the next 2 rounds and does better than the other 3 or 4 candidates who have applied for the post, then he will be selected and I will have an ‘amigo’ around in the office. That will be good.

When I was in the 10th grade I made a friend who was new to our school. He was a loud-mouthed, arrogant yet smart & friendly former Saudi resident named Sameer Siddique. Guy was a smart ass and pissed people off at first but then they understood that he was just kidding and soon most of my classmates started warming up to him. For that year and for the next couple of years, he was my best friend.

Sameer had a volatile temper and a mouth with a motor attached to it. Petty things that 15 year old boys could dole out in class could really rile him up. And the teachers would turn to me to calm him down!  I had that effect on people (stopped when I started getting a really bad temper by the age of 25). Anyways, it was a really good friendship. My family knew him well. I got to know his sister & his mom and even went to his dad’s office (he was a heart surgeon) at times.

I hung out at his house a lot; whenever his parents & sister were away visiting relatives, I’d stay over and we’d watch movies, eat a lot of good food and talk about the future. I even went a mosque with him (I was an atheist by then but still curious). We’d go to movies together (I went to this really awful Kamala Hassan Tamil movie back in 1991) and teamed up for a couple of events at school. His sister’s first child was even named Roshanara after me despite their claims that it isn’t

By 1993-94 he moved to Velloor to study medicine and become a doctor like his dad. His friends would always support him and say that finally he would discover what was wrong with him once he could self-diagnose himself . But jokes aside, he was very single minded in his ambition to become a doctor and focused on it. I lost touch with him around that time. During the summer of 1997, he called me up and asked if we could hang out and go for lunch or something. So we hooked up with a couple of other buddies from school and went for lunch and a movie.

That was the last I saw of him. Over the years since I’ve thought about my childhood and my old friends a lot. I miss a lot of them and I miss Sameer. As I grow older I’ve begun to really appreciate the positive figures I met in my life and I’ve tried reaching out to the old friends I’ve lost touch with. I’ve tried Orkut & Facebook and MySpace in an effort to find out my old school friends. I haven’t found Sameer in any of them yet but I hope to someday.

And oh yeah – he had this big mouth so we used to call him Steven Tyler or Mick Jagger back in the day!

Although I was a bit tired, I had made arrangements through Twitter to meet Binny, he of the amazingly large movie collection. It had been quite a while since I was able to conduct an ‘operation raid Binny’s collection’, as other guys in Twitter refer to and I needed more movies. He wanted Season 7 of Star Trek Voyager & anything else of interest that I might have.

So we agreed to meet around 11:30 am at Barista cafe and he would bring his laptop and I would bring one of my external hard drives (as I have no laptop). I woke up at around 7 am, watched an episode of Star Trek Enterprise that I had downloaded, had coffee and then ate a slow breakfast while rocking out to some tunes. By 10 am, Binny called to confirm the timings and the venue (CCD was discussed but my last visit to CCD was not good and so I didn’t want to go there).  I took a shower and headed over to Barista by 11:15 am.

We sat at a corner table and chatted for about 90 minutes. I got a few movies from him: X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Blade, Star Trek XI, Casino Royale, Fallen, Maxtrix 2 & 3, District 9, Top Gun & The Prestige. Good loot eh? He has an amazing collection that he keeps on several DVDs and on his drives and once in a while we exchange stuff. I gave him V the original series, V the new rebooted one (4 episodes), Stargate Universe (first 10 episodes), season 1 of Star Trek TOS and season 7 of Voyager. We had coffee and chatted about this and that and by 1pm I had to leave to join a couple of friends for some drinks and lunch.

Two evenings ago Anil called me up to say that he wanted me & Madhu to come out for some dinner as he has been having a craving for some real Chinese food. He seems to like the food at Chiyang, which is very close my apartment but for two reasons I do not like to go there 1) It’s really hot and I wanted to go to a place which has an air condition and 2) both Madhu & I do not like the food in Chiyang!

So I said ok as long as Madhu & I get to choose the restaurant (which would have anyplace other than Chiyang. We decided to meet up at Barista Cafe and then find a place. I told them that I could leave the office at 6 pm and would meet them there. However, since both of them left their respective offices at around 4pm, they were hanging out at Barista for quite a while and at 6 pm they called me up to say that they were heading out to get a beer and asked me to meet up with them at the Menaka bus stop. I was delayed for a few more minutes at the office due to some issue and hence was a bit late.

A little after 7:30 pm, I met the two idiots at Menaka, after I stopped at an ATM to get some cash. We stood there at the bus stop and bickered like 3 school girls over where to go for some dinner. As Madhu & I had vetoed Chiyang, Anil kept bringing up some other ideas for places to eat. Finally we decided to head out to Chinese Garden in Pallimukku and we hailed an auto and made our way there.

Now, I hadn’t been to this restaurant since 1994-95 but it used to be a favourite family restaurant for us when I was growing up. I can remember quite a few dinners with my family, cousins, uncles & aunts. The last time I was here was when I was 18 or 19 with an older childhood friend who treated me to lunch. So I was looking forward to going there for dinner. However, I’m amazed that they had an appalling flooring. It looked like it hadn’t been fixed since the 1980s and there were loose gravel and pieces of what felt like pebbles to me – couldn’t make out as they keep the lights at a minimum.

So we sat down at a corner table and looked over the menu. Anil and I were a bit disappointed to learn that they had stopped serving beer at their establishment since the last 14 months – apparently things got a little out of hand a few times and the owners decided to stop stocking up beer as they wanted it to remain a family restaurant. Anyways, atleast we really like their red lanterns that they had all over the place. We decided to start with Sweet Corn Crab soup and happy to state that they were really good.

Next we ordered two bowls of egg noodles and 1 bowl of egg fried rice along with two bowls of chilly prawns and 1 chilly fish. I must say that their food was really good, especially the noodles and the prawns, which turned out to be these huge tiger prawns. We ate and talked for a while and the food was reasonably priced. The downside was the water – they served us cold mineral water and charged ys Rs.40 for the two bottles they served at our table! What the fuck! Charging us for water is the lowest of the low. I mean, yes I understand that it is bottled mineral water but we just asked for water and not the pretentious & pompous bottle stuff.

Once the meal was done, we walked for a bit in the general South part of M G Road as Anil was looking for a bus that would take him to Thrissur where he stays. He managed to get a ride on a Greyhound that was headed for Coimbatore after a little bit of haggling – the owner said that they only take on passengers who want to alight at Coimbatore but the bus driver agreed to do an under the counter agreement with Anil and drop him off at Thrissur. Once Anil was safely in, Madhu and I got into an auto and after he got off at Menaka where he had left his bike, I went on home.

I don’t have many frequent readers, just a handful of loyal people who read & comment. Some people, like a few cousins & friends read them but don’t discuss the topics at all. I’ve seen colleagues who read them as well and tell me about it at work the next day. I appreciate all readers but it’s time for me to give a shout out to one really special lady, a New Jersey woman named Meleah Rebeccah Hawthorne.

As you can see by the tally of comments on the sidebar, she’s encouraged me to continue writing 300 times. I can’t believe that someone would spend so much time to read, absorb and comment on the stuff that I dole out but she does. As do some other people but she does it more frequently. As far as my personal cheerleaders goes (with regards to this blog & writing) she is top gun, numero uno. And as you can tell – she’s one hot Mamma!

I read her blog a lot and she’s been kind of an inspiration for me and a whole lot of others. So thanks for sticking to this blog for over two years (judging from the comments, you started reading my stuff in December 2007 and guess what? It was about VODKA) and I’ve taken the liberty of adding a “300″ sign from the movie onto one of my favourite pics of yours. Thanks a lot Meleah and please keep commenting.

A bit of a let down! Actually a whole lot of a let down!

Yesterday after talking with a colleague I was interested in going to one of the more expensive bars in town and have a different kind of experience. I was showing him the pics I took at Velocity Bar & Restaurant and then we started talking about the more expensive bars in town. Loungivity in MG Road (part of the Avenue Regent hotel) is an expensive lounge bar that I’ve been to just once – back in 2007. The cheapest drinks there are Smirnoff & Absolut Vodkas which were Rs.180 for a peg! When you think that most of us usually pay between Rs.55-80 usually, that’s a whole lotta dough!

Another place that I wanted to visit was Couchin (rather neat to mix the words “couch” and “Cochin” together eh?) which is a big lounge bar owned by the Grand Hotel on MG Road. I’ve heard great things about the place but just haven’t gone there yet. Also I was told by the same colleague of a new place in Thevara which is next to Harbour View hotel. Gotta check out these places and also revisit the rooftop bar in Mercy Estate.

With all these great places to visit (2 where I have been only once and 2 where I haven’t been yet) I was eager to get my buddies together and have a great Saturday evening. So messages and calls were exchanged but in the end it fizzled out. Madhu couldn’t make it and Anil had to make it a very quick one. So in the end we went to Velocity and had 4 rounds of Gin (for him) & Vodka and we ate some good chicken and chapatties. It was good but it was so short in duration and I usually like to take it slow when I drink. But Anil wanted to go back to Thrissur at 9pm and a friend of his was waiting to pick him up.

I came back home, quite disappointed that the evenning didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to be. Well, maybe next time.

After a stressful and tension bogged week at the office, the best way to blow of some steam is to hang out with your best friends. I am lucky to have two best friends who I can count on to make me laugh and forget about the problems at work for a few hours. I count myself fortunate to have such friends and, rightfully, I look forward to meeting these two guys.

For new readers, I met Madhu & Anil in 2003, while the three of us were working for AspinWall in their outbound sales Call Center. The two of them had already meet a few weeks earlier and over the next few months, we became a trio of close friends and who have remained so despite the passing years. I have only worked with them for 7 months but they have remained my closest friends till date.

Madhu, Anil & me

As such, today evening we decided to get together for a few drinks, postoned from last week. We met at Malabar House Rooftop Garden bar and had a few drinks with some good food. Kozhuva fry, chilli pork, salad, garlic prawns, eggs & peanuts were wolfed down as we downed brandy, whiskey & vodka.

The hours went by quickly and before long we were all tired. I knew that by 10:30 pm I wanted to get back home and relax on my bed after a tough week at work. But unwinding by hanging out with your best buds is a great thing to do. Even if the discussions have become very predictable – marriage (or lack off in the case of Anil & me), family and I’ve asked them to try and look out for a new job for me as I want to get out of this company that I am currently in.

Just before 11 pm, I am back in my room, relaxing and letting the food digest and thinking about nothing but sleep for the rest of the weekend. Goodnite guys.

I’ve blogged about her before so you will have to read these posts in this order first second third fourth fifth sixth & seventh post. Read them all before you read the rest of this post.

If you have you will know as to how much this girl has gone through, has taken her family through and how much better off the lives of four people would have been if she hadn’t gotten herself involved with that bastard who she now calls her husband.

I’ve stayed in touch with her ever since she left the office. At first as I was quite concerned, I would call her atleast once a week and she would call me about 2 or 3 times in a month and we’d chat for a few minutes. As the weeks & months passed my calls to her dropped to once every 30 days and recently it became once every 2 months. That’s also because I haven’t been able to see her in a long time and well, work & life interferes. Also it is because, like each & every one of her true friends, I disapprove of what she has done and that moron she has chosen to spend her life with.

She knows that but she also knows that I will forever be her friend and no matter what I’ll be someone she can turn too. Earlier this month she called me and said that she was attending an interview with Infosys and that she hoped to get the job in Bangalore. She also said that I wasn’t keeping in touch with her as much as I used to and I begged the stress of the job as an excuse. I still wanna be her friend and I do miss her.

Well, a couple of days ago I got a message from her new number and I called her up. She had joined Infosys and was in training right now. I was glad to hear her being excited about working in a big company and she was going on & on about the place where she was staying. I hope this is a big positive change in her life. I’m not sure about what her husband is doing and I didn’t ask and neither did she volunteer any info. Not that I wanna know. For now she is happy & safe and that should be good enough.

I did not know what I was going to do for New Year’s eve until almost 4 pm. Plans kept getting canceled and remade and stuff, so much that I thought that I was going to spend it alone at home, probably with a pizza rather than spending the evening drinking with my best buds Anil & Madhu. But finally it was on.

I was at work and planning to leave the office by 6pm. Traffic dragged on by and in an hour I reached Barista cafe, starving and thirsty as hell. I entered the loud and noisy cafe and ordered a tiny sandwich and a coffee, as both Madhu & Anil were being delayed due to traffic. Madhu had to come from Paroor and Anil was on his way from Thrissur. I sat at a corner table and browsed through a magazine while hot chicks kept floating on by. Then there was a guy & a girl arguing loudly at the table right in front of me. It was a case of “you said, they said, I said” and a lot of swear words. The guy was also showing off.

Just before 8 pm Anil walks in and we decide to go to Velocity bar and wait for Madhu to come. We found a seat, ordered a beer for him and Romanov vodka for me (with Sprite ofcourse). Madhu came in soon and ordered whiskey. We ate lots of kozhuva fry (small but tasty fish), chilly pork, egg burgi, salad, chilly chicken & chilly prawns. It was quite filling. We talked and joked and laughed and made fun of each other as usual.

Anil filled me in on a funny but potentially dangerous incident – Madhu had an accident while riding his bike intoxicated. He crashed his bike on MG Road after the two of them had attended an afternoon party of a former colleague. He had some stiches and bruises to show me for it. Asshole! Then there was the usual ribbing for Anil & me and our former flames and the fact that neither of us are not married as of yet.

We also made plans to get together soon for a weekend or so away from work, family, pressure and stuff. Maybe a cottage or something away from the city so we can chat and drink and eat good food without worring about transportation and getting caught by the cops. I hope something gets worked out by next month. Anyways, it was a nice way to end the year. We left the bar by 11:30 pm as they had to close and we went back to our homes.

Just after I woke up this morning, I was informed by my parents that our former neighbour of 19 years & family friend had passed away in the early hours of the morning. I hadn’t met him since we moved away from suburban Thrikkakara but having known this person for over 2 decades, it makes me sad to hear of his passing.

He was a former engineer who also owned a supermarket that had to fold because of a much larger chain of similar styled supermarket came into being and took most of his business away. I’ll always remember him & his late wife, in their welcoming house. Many years ago, when my parents would be away in the evening and I came home from class, they would leave the keys with these neighbours and when I would go to get the keys to my house from them, neighter he nor his wife would let me go without having tea or snacks. I would come up with excuses so I could refuse their hospitality.

His wife, who passed away due to cancer a few years back was this cheerful woman who my mom commented as “never been seen without a genuine smile on her face”, was a sweet & caring person. Her family kept her suffering private for a few years and it came as a shock to many when they finally knew about her battle with cancer. Mr. & Mrs. V – you both will be greatly missed.