finally..

after 4 months, i am here again penning, i mean, writing down some of the thoughts and updates on the happenings in this long break from world of blogging.. i think this will be one of those long and boring posts :)

so to being with i shifted job from citigroup to abn amro, but does it make much of a difference, after all it's another bank and even if i change job in future it will again be another bank, no marketing/consulting firm in a sensible state of mind will recruit me and even if they try, i will give them a pass :) i won't bore you to death by trying to explain the nature of my work nor will i answer any stupid questions like what are your working hours, how much money do you get in hand, where do you eat during office hours.. after all this is my blog (remember that "this is my college" hit dialogue from iimc-xl meet 05) and not a forum for meeting your old relatives who ask these questions every time you meet them.. so i will end the most useless update here itself and move to something more interesting..

soon after joining the new firm, i went to london (yes the capital of great or greater or whatever britain) for a month.. i felt like going back to india the moment i landed on the heathrow airport..
rest as they is history.. had quite a boring routine there.. work in office from 9 in the morning to 6 in the evening and coming back to the same hotel room.. sigh.. went to the famous monument called stone-hedge on the very first weekend there, (yeah it is the same thing u see in the window's wallpaper) bunch of stones placed vertically or horizontally or in whatever possible way the laws of physics allow.. that was my first and last visit out of london during my stay there :) within london i watched a live soccer match (my birth-right being a passionate soccer fan), saw the 221-b baker street (where my distant relative sherlock holmes did a study in scarlet) and bought a beatles shirt for myself (the only shopping i did there).. speaking more of london, yes it is a great city, certainly the city with most diverse population in the world.. but still mumbai rocks (and mumbai also has the most diverse population if not in the world, at least within india, but more on mumbai later).. i seriously don't know how one of my friend (not to be named on a public forum else he runs the risk of losing his life by the noble hands of shiv-sainiks) starts dreaming about london every time he listens to the song "yeh jo desh hai tera", sometimes i think why let the shiv-sainiks dirty their hands with his blood and rather not do the act myself (hoping that he is not reading all this, else i am dead) :P

the best thing that happened to me while in london was that i finally started reading shantaram (after 4.5 months of purchase) and i loved every paged of it.. the book based on the real life incidents of gregory david roberts (if you want to find more about him, go to http://www.google.com/ and type "shantaram" in the text-box that is visible to your eyes on the screen) is set in mumbai.. causeway, leopold's, haji-ali, mahalaxmi, gateway, cuffe parade, colaba, marine drive, regal theatre, bandra - it just captures all of these places in the most beautiful and picturesque way a book can do and filled my mind with the nostalgic memories of my city every time i came across any of these names while turning the pages of this book (refereed as "bible" by another friend of mine, again protecting his identity to save him from religious fanatists claiming for copyright violations on the title "bible") while lying on the bed in the desolate corner of my hotel room in london..

i know this post has already become long and borish, but i will still continue.. i really don't care for the feelings of the reader when i am in the writing mood.. okay, so i was talking about shantaram being described as bible.. i haven't read bible so i can't comment on this comparison but the book is certainly in an all-together different league.. the journey of the protaganist (named Lindsay and lovingly called linbaba in the novel) is a victory of sheer will-power against all odds of the world.. sometimes i think that if i had even 20% of the will power that lindsay had, i would be a different man :) the novel holds you from the very first page (where it talks about freedom of hating or forgiving your oppresors as being a great choice for you) and unfolds in a stronger way in every next page with the progess of story and introduction of new characters.. karla, didier, lisa, abdullah, khader khan, naseer, tariq will remain in my memory for years to come and how can one forget the ever smiling & greeting face of prabaker (pure reflection on a typical indian).. it is really difficult to choose one character as the best in this novel, as every character has been developed in a very strong way in this book but my top 4 picks will be - lindsay (coming out clean from such difficult events in life where 99.999999999% of the people would have given up), karla (most mysterious lady i have ever read about and for coming out with at least half of the quotable quotes of this book), khader khan (his philosophy of life and for that "sometimes you do the wrong thing for the right reasons") and abdullah (always being there for his friends when they needed him most).. for whatever reason if you haven't read this book, do read it, you will not regret my advice this time :) i used to read a chapter per day on average but it surely is one irresistible novel once you open it and have known people like thakur reading it in a couple of days (if you are going for this rapid-action read, do keep some ration within the reach of your hands always)..

if you have read this far, this means that you have lot of free time and so i am sure that you can bear with me for the last portion of the post..soon after coming back to india, i went to bangalore to catch with my old friends and believe me had more fun in those 2.5 days than the aggregate of 30 days that i stayed in the firang land (you can check out the snaps in my yahoo photo album).. as for mumbai, i am missing the cafe frappe @ carter road CCD in the light drizzle now that the rainy season is over here but this doesn't change my opinion that mumbai is the best city in the world :P

i went to home this diwali after 3 years and got my guitar also with me :) for those unaware, this will be my third attempt at learning guitar and i already possess two identical f-cut givson guitars at my home.. in fact i was afraid that if i go for a new guitar this time again, my mom (already troubled with storing 2 guitars at home) would have broken the previous two guitars to create some space for the third guitar that she anticipates will be there soon :) also watched the last f1 race of the season at home, and with schumi driving his ferrari for the last time and coming up from 18th place to the 4th place, it was worth watching every second of it.. what schumi said at the end of race "today, we (ferrari) could have overtaken any car on the planet" speaks highly of what is coming next season with felipe massa & kimi raikonnen leading the charge for ferrari.. watch out, renault !! it will take some miracle for you to win the constructor title a third time with alonso also gone now...