Chapter 9 - Herby in Hyderabad ....and a Indigo joins in

So here we are.. Herby in Hyderabad , the city of the famous Hyderabad biriyani and lots more. Hyderabad is not a new city for me , spent a few years of schooling in my endless house hopping journeys. Our new home was being built and our temporary accommodation was dads office guest house which doubled up as the company's training centre . A training centre where fresh graduates come in and go through a training , induction process to formally get into the company main stream of activities.The new training centre being built was 90 kilometres away on the other side of the city and Herby had a real good run clocking up kilometres day in day out with dad at the wheel.

Soon age seem to have caught up with both dad and herby , at 12 years Herby's suspension wasn't any softer and passed on the jerks to dad's spinal cord which was equally old at 48 . And dad from the company he worked for was entitled for a chauffeur driver and car.Thus began the hunt for a newer car , a car which could be fuel efficient considering the distance covered and offer luxury at a value price. Well before you think luxury means Bms or audis or mercs , hang on .... the car we bought was a Tata Indigo , well for those who want to know about tata , Tata now owns Jaguar and Land rover and makes Trucks , Buses all sort of things. Well as far as the Indigo was concerned , an Australian equivalent would be a top end variant of the Nissan Tilda. From a performance perspective , the Indigo was truly outclassing our herby , had a 1.6 Turbo Diesel and of course manual transmission , leather seats and a audio with aux were already ready. I must admit that during the initial days , my attention was diverted to our newer car ignoring Herby. The Indigo was faster and going at 100 was a breeze , and the turbo was comedy by itself . The turbo would only kick in at a certain rev and when it did , I found myself in a situation trying to control a raging bull unable to get the right driving characteristic.

But the arrival of Indigo had a silver lining , now it meant that after 100000 km on the clock , a worn suspension , No frilled Herby's keys were finally handed over to me. Herby was now mine ! Truly mine. And I was simply overjoyed , ok maybe a corner of me wished for the new car but nevertheless getting a car is good enough. Herby now in my hands of course , but not without a few last moment customisations . I ensured Dad changed the ageing seat upholstery and put in a audio with Aux. The budget was stringent but this is the least i expected , considering i always loved my music and the seats should be a little worthy of ferrying a few girl friends around town , so u see see am in my college days.

Soon I wasn't too fussed about the Indigo being used by my dad and would stand by my Herby challenging him that Id beat him any day in a race knowing very well I would definitely lose. Though I did have a few motivational factors to think that I could , I had a small car with a petrol engine and dint really have to be too bothered about how i drive Herby , no matter what maintenance is low. while the Indigo was pretty new , the car is hug and cant move around in traffic as easy as mine.
So much for personal ego , to date the cars never raced , they were good in their respective places. But I did have a few antics on my belt with Herby , most notably doing a turn on 3 wheels at 70 kph and a sharp one at that. It happened when I  was at the wheel with my dad and a friend of his. I was in the right lane going at around 70 when dad was cross at me for missing an exit and the next option to turn back was to cross a bridge do a U turn and come back. My local knowledge of the suburb by now meant that I knew the roads well and that I dint have to cross the bridge and have one last option to go under the bridge and flip around through a series of inner roads. The only trouble is I am on the right lane doing 70 and that turn was smack left in front of me , in a split second I swerved the steering cutting across 3 lanes moving the car in 3 wheels and then doing a hard left and a hard right and to get the car back on 4 wheels slowing down slamming on my brakes. To this day dads friend will never forget this ride and he calls it his near death experience.

To me it was a near youth fun experience , I dint get away easy and was banned from driving until I showed signs of not showing road rage which meant a good month of sitting in the passenger seat rather than the driver seat. Nothing goes in vain , because i learnt driving watching dad drive and driving is a learning process right from darting in darting out , changing gears at the right time and knowing where your car will fit into.

Chapter 8 - A new journey begins with a loss …..

August 2005 .The day when we had to pack up and leave behind the city I call home. Mumbai , the place where I grew up and made my actual long lasting friends. There is something about that city I can never explain and alas! The time had come to depart for Hyderabad.

Dad was already transferred to Hyderabad and was still hanging in Mumbai thanks to horrible attempts in finishing my high school. Mumbai was at its usual best , complete rains and the day we were to depart the sun had come out . The packer guy said that the truck could finally head out of city to Hyderabad. A very very emotional moment and we started Herby moving out of the colony for one last time , eyes filled with tears just gazed at the roads which I have been travelling back and forth ,for these would soon be memories. Crossing the Vashi sea link and hitting the shores of Mainland India , we drove along until we reached the beginning of the Mumbai-Pune expressway. Dad handed over Herby to me and under the watchful eyes of Dad began my drive. Of course he was looking at the speedo , so that I don’t exceed 80kmph.

40 kilometres into the expressway approaching the ghats , I noticed my dad sleeping and I moved onto the right lane . Just entering the Bhatan tunnel with a Volvo on my left , I was whizzing away overtaking the bus , when my dad woke up and yelled Shyam! Cut down , Whoops in my excitement to overtake the bus and a smooth road , I dint notice the speedometer , it read 110kmph.

Settled down for a cruising 100 and soon we reached Pune by evening , with a little juggle through the city , we were out on the other end on our way to next major town called Sholapur. 2 hrs into the drive and we took a halt a roadside dhabha , which I would remember for quite some years to come for a specific reason. Why ???? Hang on folks its coming soon …

After the brief halt , we were back on the road and Dad took over , dusk fell and along with it came rain. That drive was tough , with rain tearing through the evening , visibility was low and made it impossible for us to drive , but dad moved on . Suddenly from now where we were over taken by the shiny flashing light car . It was a Contessa( a yesteryear luxury car) of a district collector . The yellow beacon light was so bright that we could see it for miles .Dad stepped on the accelerator and regardless of what speed we were in tailed the beacon car for as long as he could until a time came where we could catch up no more. The car had more power and obviously had the advantage of the beacon at a few places. I think it was god’s way of saying all right buck up your are mere civilians .

Night fell and we stopped at a place called Mohol , seemed like a okayish place for a night sleep. We retired to sleep and next morning in the first instant of dawn we began, I took over wheel again and we just came out of the Hotel and barely a 100 metres , I realised my purse missing. We went back to the hotel and searched everywhere , to no avail .

Its when it struck me that I had left behind my purse accidently on the dhabha near Pune . Well they say you should get blessing/darshan from elderly people or god when a new day begins, I sure got it from my dad. Not only did I lose my purse , along with it went my driving license and 2500 bucks in cash and It turns out that Dad who had given me that money was the only cash we had. Uh oh and oh for 10 minutes I was at the receiving end of my fatherly blessings , and all I could do is keep my mouth shut and probably keep it under my seat .

Soon things cooled and then Dad blurted out , you bugger! that was the only cash which had to be used for fueling Herby. Which village petrol pump do you think is going to have credit card facility. I still threw a sulky face .Well that mean I cant drive anymore and dad took over , all the fiasco delayed us a good 45 minutes and Dad was in furious mood showed it at the wheel , I think we were hitting 100 constantly until a place where a dog ran across and too late ! We could brake in time , and thud !

50 metres further we stopped the car , It dint seem like the day was going too well for us , a lost license and now a dog hit . To our surprise we saw the dog walking away on the other side , don’t ask us how it escaped . Well a good look at the front showed us the right bumper taking the impact with the indicator lamps also broken. Not too bad , but yes that’s where the thud came from.

Started again and soon dad began to worry about one hour down the road , asked him why and he said , we are low on fuel. 6 am in the morning and the petrol pumps weren’t open either. The needle was just a shade above the E mark , E  means empty , damn ….

A few kilometres as we cut down our speed to increase the mileage , we noticed a bunk guy just opening the petrol station . We went to him and said you accept cards , he gave us one weird look , He said no card and with the little money dad had we filled Herby .

15 litres and all dad was left now was with 100 rs in hand.

We calculated 15 litres should take us thru 300 kilometres and hopefully we should be able to find one more Petrol station which of course now has to accept credit cards. Back on the road and we drove along letting kilometres run away , after 4 hours we noticed fuel indicator close to E again . Dad now was getting worried , with all his calculations we had covered 290 odd kilometres . Did we underestimate the mileage , he was asking me ?

I had no answer and couldn’t still reeling under my morning shock. 5 minutes later a big petrol station and credit cards and dhaba and eateries. Phewww We stopped Herby tanked up full and after a sip of coffee started again to reach Hyderabad at 10 AM.

Herby now in a brand new city in the Southern State of Andhra Pradesh 750 kilometres from Mumbai .

Chapter 7 - Treasure Hunt and a Hi to Padmini

Days were rolling by in Mumbai with work ,college. Thanks to Mumbai’s transportation , Herby was seldom used except for some short hops here and there. There was this time when Herby would max cover a distance of 150 odd kilometres over 2 months. And even those came out of trips to relatives place or the temple.

Boring days were nearing when one Sunday morning I caught an ad in the paper . Maruti Suzuki treasure hunt.It read “ Inviting all maruti owners to take part in this treasure hunt in Mumbai’ The hunt began at 8 Am and I saw the clock , It read 8 30 .


I screamed across to dad in the other room , pops treasure hunt and mum was just getting ready to start Sunday cooking . 30 minutes later I had succeeded in getting the three of us out onto herby filled with sandwiches and water bottles to go on the treasure hunt. The treasure hunt aim is to finish some 13 odd clues or checkpoints and involved some lucky draws for the fastest completion.We registered ourselves and I found my dad signing some rules stating maruti not responsible for any accident which may occur etc and that speed limit will be checked between 2 checkpoints. Max permissible speed is 60kmph.I was miffed hearing that , 60kmph ,, nonsense Mumbai roads especially on eastern express highway and western express highway we could touch 80kmph.


Nevertheless we headed off on our treasure hunt , a lovely Sunday morning and sun out , mum making sandwiches in the back seat and me trying to guess the treasure hunts. Couple of them very pretty easy but they were spanned so across Mumbai that it involved us going from one end to the other . It was so much fun as at every checkpoint we were given goodies like car vouchers teddy bears and water cool drinks . Herby for the first time had a number sticker ! I was so proud because till then I have only seen race cars with numbers on the side. We had caps and maps and boy was it one heck of an adventure. We could finish most of the checkpoints except one which talked about a go karting circuit. We never have been to a go karting circuit in Mumbai , and I wasn’t able to recollect the name where It was located. We stopped for fuel when asked the fuel guy , if he knows any go karting circuit . He directed us to some place on the western suburb. Reaching there we dint find nay checkpoint and that’s one I got the name . I shouted in exclamation HAKONE! in eastern suburb. And thus begin our rather fiery drive from one end of Mumbai to the other .Having reached there we realised that we were running short of time . The race finishes by 4Pm. And we were there at 3 15 PM . The last checkpoint was the Mumbai CST station, a prominent heritage site. From where we were, that was a good 20 kilometres and has to reach it in 40 minutes.


We pondered a little but if we should go home as we have to cross home and reach CST. We dint give up and raced away , with 2 minutes to spare we reached CST and we were scouting for the checkpoint , the last one for us to complete the race. I was scanning around near the station and my dad had almost pulled over to the left side of the road and Herby was just about rolling , when I shouted spotting the checkpoint on the other side of the road . Dad turned to look at where I spotted and the next instant , crash and bang! The little kid screaming away and dad too momentarily lost in it , with Herby rolling and we smashed into a Fiat or better known as Premier Padmini.


Well a little scene with people coming around us and dad coming out to see the damage , well the speed in which we were caused no damage to the Fiat , a rock solid car made out of solid metal from the 1970. Herby on the other hand had some damage , my dad did a quick check and noticed that the radiator took a little beating and touching the fan . He quickly shut the bonnet and went back to the seat ,and we looked in the direction of the checkpoint , and disaster , They were just packing up in a bike and going off .

My dad not wanting to give up as we had come so far , did a quick turn and raced towards them already moving on their bikes. Herby with his fan was making weird noises taka taka taka whirr whirrrr whirrrrrrr with the engine running and the front grill shaking as it lost it bolts and the bonnet was only holding it . I think this is where we broke the 60 rule and went ahead catching up to the guys in the bike. We got our last checkpoint stamped and goodie bag, and proceeded home. Herby was making the whirr noises and mum asked to cut the speed down. 40 minutes later home sweet home. Herby went to the mechanic the next day and got himself treated and back with the radiator and fan fixed,

To this day me and dad have a hearty laugh on how herby by just touching Padmini, took such an impact, we keep saying even today, we just said Hi to a Padmini and we got a trashed radiator.

Chapter 6 - Winding roads and freaked out hands

After months of squabbling with my dad that we have not been on any long road trip . We decided to take Herby out to Pune and Mahableshwar meeting relatives in Pune.

Dad and Son taking inspiration of being dressed holiday style , went to the nearby clothes store and bought ourselves nice baggy half pants , kind of a trekking half shorts.

Cometh the day and I was all mad, doing rain checks and helping out dad with herby .Soon we were off in Herby, clad in our shorts with mum doing the eateries duty in the backseat and occasional back street driving too. She would go often noticing the speedometer ‘Shankar – reduce speed.

First time on the Mumbai Pune expressway and one hell of a road it is . Perhaps one of the best roads in India when we travelled, 6 lane on both sides and long and long. And that was the first time I realised what Herby could do. Little into the Pune highway post lunch, when my mum dozed off, I was chatting away noticing the Volvo buses go past us and the scenes around. I took some time off to notice the speedometer after a brief stop at a toll gate .My dad shifted gears swiftly and I was glaring at the speedometer , For some god damn reason I had the movie Speed running in my head, especially the dialogue go below 50 the bus blows ! And there was a scene where the bus jumps of a bridge at 50 miles roughly I guess around 90kms. I wondered if Herby can be in such situation and go fast. My eyes from a little peck was suddenly locked onto the Speedo , 70 , the needle gradually moving beyond the half way Speedo to 80kmph and then inching towards 90kmph . I noticed that 2 more pegs and we will be in the three figure mark. Can herby do it?

High end cars , all zipping past and suddenly we were zipping too , 91 , 92 , 93 , 95 and in front of us are the cars much more faster , comfortable . and then the next moment the glee on my face , an old car on the right lane overtaking a brand new car and boy 100KMPH , My face light up and like a young kid way , went with a sense of achievement , haa I raced you ! The old car is still stuff and boy what a feeling!!!!

The sun was beating down on us and in front me and dad had no protection thanks to the half pants, we eventually put towels on our laps to prevent getting roasted. 3 hours later we were up on the winding roads on the hill station. While going up there was a road which said , Suicide point , I coaxed my dad into driving there and soon we were off on this narrow road twisty and turning . Reaching there was a piece of cake but on the way back , there was something in store and my dad apparently has vertigo , some kind off fear of heights of head spinning thing . The reason , well while going there he was facing the mountain side and hence did not have an idea of depth , however while going back the drivers side faces the valley below and in good depth too , he freaked out , I could sense his palms sweating. And horrible me , to me all this is adventure , here my dad is struggling to be in senses and drive and I am shouting , yayy wat a deep valley and depth , super scene .

My mum screamed , Shyam – will you shut up . I promptly did and after few minutes we were back on the main road. My dad stopped and was panting away drinking water. Of course that was the last of Herby on off beaten tracks.

Chapter 5- illegally out of the colony into the city

By now , my driving was a lot more better and daily rounds in colony have enabled me to perfect my driving . The result was that I could now go in all 4 gears , turn the steering and do all this listening to music on my Mp3 player. Of course no more gate banging.

The itchy hands were now quite bored or driving around the colony to be honest and soon there was a period of time when I preferred to sit back in the passenger seat and enjoy the road, until one fine day my aunt was coming to Mumbai and by an early morning train. She was asking me direction in the taxi to reach our home.

Ummmm.. ummmmmm my brain went whizzing . Chalukya express arrival 7 30 Am at Dadar . Speaking on the phone , with herby in front of me .My brain was now doing its weird thoughts of the road etc and in the momentary thinking , probably I could feel herby too standing there and talking to me , as if to say ‘Hey Shyam , morning no traffic psst psst , listen 4^th gear more than 40km. And in the next second I told my aunt , aunty no taxi , I will come and pick u up. She said oh ok.

The following night , sleep wasn’t seen anywhere near me , the feeling of going out against all odds, dad in Hyderabad, mum in Rajkot and it was only me and herby. I used to get up every 2 hours and check my watch , is it 6.30 , is it 6 30 . At last 6.30 arrived and for the first time ever like a warrior getting out into the battle field to face the opponents , I crossed the main gate of our colony to merge onto the main road . 2 minutes later I was on the Eastern Express Highway towards the City , 4 lane , no traffic .

Need for speed music was back in head , this time in full swing , moving along flyovers and passing trucks and taxis and going at 80kmph , I was in full glee with my lips not closing , yeehawww , I am on my way to Dadar . Of course there were a lot of factors influencing my decision to go out. Primarily because the roads are very wide and not narrow , and no signals to stop as we go above in flyovers and morning traffic is less.

Soon I was on my way back picking up my aunt , a little jittery as by now the traffic on the road had increased manifold and I dare not tell my aunt that this is first time I am driving on the main roads. 30 minutes later we were home and Herby was parked back.

Its like the movies , when I gave a little pat with my hand on the bonnet and said thank you. I did it . And moved away, few days later when my dad heard this , instead of reacting , it ended up being positive with me now officially given permission no head out of colony under adult supervision, hehe ! Well actually dad in the passenger seat.

Well which now means that all the short hop journeys to the market and nearby friendsplace , I get to drive and my fathers keep saying to our relatives , ahh I now sit back , Shyam is the driver . I proudly smile and since I am more involved in Herby , I do my fair bit of cleaning Herby and ensuring that the windscreen is devoid of dust .All for another shot at driving. 

Chapter 4 - Herby goes to workshop and Gate crashes

By now it was a known fact that I was driving the car in the colony and doing my scratches and breakings. My dad did not seem to mind these little mishaps, much to my irritation . He is very fond of Herby , but this non angry reaction irked me.

Few days later I got my answer , the reason he was not bothered about the little dents and breakage was due to the fact that Herby was going for a full makeover and away for 2 weeks to the workshop. The workshop was not very far off just a little away from the house towards the main road. Every day on my way out to the main road I would look for Herby and how he is . The first few days he was stripped of all lighting and fitments and lying with wires dangling on the side of the road parked in slush. I couldn’t do much as there was no parking space. Soon after a week, he was stripped of his doors, the bonnet and the hatch and his paint scrubbed out .I wondered what it is to be a car being like that.

Things got even worse after a few days, when he was now not on his own feet, and was supported by stone blocks. And finally one fine day after 2 weeks of being in the workshop comes out a Milk white painted Herby, completely polished and shiny black bumpers, all dents taken out, new headlamps, tail lamps ,new indicators. Parked in his new parking spot right in front of my balcony , ahh for a few days I forgot the girls in my colony to bird watch , I would just admire Herby with his shiny shiny looks.

Now of course the human mind doesn’t keep quiet and I was yet again tempted to take him out. Wow , click goes the key on the door and when I open it , could smell the fresh smell of polish , the smell of fresh oil and new rubber mats . Seat covers. Next with great excitement I turn the ignition and vroom this silent engine wake up . Not the rattling engine I knew. I kept the engine running , opened the bonnet trying to see what is new.

As if I am a great mechanic , I peeked into the bonnet to see everything now fresh smelling , few shiny parts which I assume are new. And an engine so silent . So much was my excitement , you could probably have transformers move opening music playing in the background with this boy awestruck at a machine. Back in the drivers seat and this time the fast paced Need for speed music comes into mind .Just like the game , a new car means more power , more power means fast and fast means covering my colony in less time.

Haha you can imagine the scene , teenage kid , a car revamped , my colony road is my race track and I am the only one ready to trash the lap record and NFS music in my head. I took the car out racing through my colony and as I was driving , I heard my name being called out , it was one of our colony uncles. I said hi and the next moment in front of me is our colony gate closed and bolted down to the road and the speed breaker just in front of it . What happens next till date I cannot seem to fathom to this day.

Front of me is a 2 ton metal gate bolted down freshly painted in red and black , the momentary Hi to my uncles resulted in me losing my concentration on the road and before I could realise to stop , the car went over the Speed breaker , crash bang and ding ding ding ding the metal gate is thrown open vibrating and rattling and the car stops.

That day I think is my first experience of the heart missing a beat . Herby just out of the workshop , my dad himself has not driven it , the shiny metal gate crashed into by this little 900 Kg car. I could already hear and feel my dad screaming and possibly hitting me . The society people complaining and the broken gate.

I got out of the car shuddering and panicking to first check on the damage to herby. Nothing , all I see is a car whose front wheel is on the speed breaker stopped with a tilted angle ,the gate wide open . Could not believe my eyes, how is this possible ? I hit a 2 ton gate with such force it actually opened and here is a car which doesn’t seem to have even a scratch . To be honest I expected the front end to be gone with the bonnet crushed in and the headlamps knocked out. Throwing my ego aside I checked and checked and went round and round herby trying to see some damage. Alas there was none . To this date I am dumbstruck as to how there is no damage.

After a good 30 minutes of doing round round, I gave up and went back to the driver seat to turn the ignition , ok I must admit no need for speed music . I could only imagine whacking of the belt and me in one corner of my sofa with face red horribly scolded and given a trashing of my life. Herby roared to life and I think I heard my brain speak and ask , why are you fooling me ? Arent you hurt and if yes where are you hurt ?.No answer , of course what was I expecting ? Herby to speak in English … obviously not.

I parked Herby and next went to investigate the gate. Seemed all fine and I had more confidence that the 2 ton gate just opened and nothing else. And then on the right gate , was the bolt which was to the ground completely bent in right angle. And of course the bolt doing its fair bit digging into the road. I thought I could get away , but unfortunately the uncle had seen it all and also noticed the bolt gone.

He came upto me and said ..you…. that bolt needs to be replaced !!! With a ferocious tone . We will send the notice to your father he bellowed. Gone ! I felt my first belt trashing on my back already. I ran home and called him up and when I narrated the events , he too was steaming and yet amazed that no damage to Herby. He did not believe it either . Later he came in the evening did the exact round round round of Herby and I was grinning , hehe ,he to couldn’t find any damage and was equally amazed . And clarified with me stating “ So you drove the car through that metal gate which was closed and nothing has happened’? . I shamefully trying to hide my laugh said errr YES.

All is well ends well , the bolt was damaged at 600 rupees , pretty small considering what could have been more if Herby was Damaged. Deal with my dad that this incident will not be told to Mum with great importance and that I will continue driving.

Chapter 3 -Juggling the turning and breaking the lighting.

After my first 4^th gear shot with Herby , it was soon time to get it back to base. Of course this again is a different challenge. I have to know to park Herby in its exact location to avoid dads suspicion. Boy was it quite a task , well for starters yes I do know how to drive but still haven’t got the judgemental capabilities of its size , especially when the parking lot is narrow. Well All I had to do was drive it in straight to the end.

I did get away for a couple of day with my antics of driving around and parking it correctly. There was one broken flower pot which was my park mark , hehehhe.
I would leave it when I get out and ensure that I park it right there. Of course it does disappear some times , but yea was lucky enough to get away with dad not noticing the difference in location, ahh well just a few inches here and there.

And then came the day , where desire dragged the dum dum for trouble. Desperately wanting to drive , I took herby out and then when I wanted to come back 2 cars parked .Uh oh … was my reaction , and since I was not confident about the judgement to pass through the 2 cars . I decided to go roundabout the other side and come , which meant that I will be coming in the opposite direction and utterly opposite to the usual way Herby would be parked.

Well having said that , I drove herby through the opposite side and reached the parking , of course not to get it back in normal direction , I had to do some juggling with the steering . I think that day if I had a 100 aircons running I would still be sweating . Forward Backward , forward backward ! forward backward , and then since my judgement was bad looking back. I would stop get out of the car see the space behind , and repeat the same. I probably looked like the biggest clut reversing a car , and then with my patience running out I did the one last turn to put it in the right direction when I heard a screeeeeeeeecchhh and the sound of crunch . Disaster , the last turn in a hurry ended up me driving herby too close to the wall on the left breaking the side indicator and making a nice straight line ripping the white paint on the right side.

Well , horrified at the scratch and the broken pieces of the indicator , I rushed back home to bring a wet cloth and here I go scrubbing scrubbing to make the line not visible . I rummaged through the shoe rack to remove the polish dad uses to polish the dashboard. I said to myself, its car polish , it should work inside and outside and took it and polished that area hoping the line would go, well after some nonsensical attempts , I was satisfied that the line is not so distinct.

In all the hungama , I totally missed the fact that the broken indicator lamp was on the ground. Next morning my dad went near the car and called me over , I went trying to put up a decent smiling face , and he said ‘ So you have been driving around I notice ….. I replied er no appa just starting , stopping and generally. He retorted back , you don’t have to say anything , see those bits of indicator lamp on the floor and smiled , I know you have been driving around , the watchman’s been telling your driving in afternoons and fast on the turns. I put up a straight face and wished he saw his watch and released that he is getting late for office. Thankfully he did and moved to catch his 9.00 AM local train.

Chapter 2 - Mumbai – 16th year and my first tryst with Herby

Until we reached Mumbai from Jaipur , I was never behind the steering wheel , though me sitting in the passenger seat would notice every move of my dad driving Herby . My dad did give me Herby to drive in Jaipur at the age of 15 , I still couldn’t get my clutch and first gear right and ended up breaking the clutch plate. After which the next time I dared to sit in the steering wheel was in Mumbai. We lived in a gated community in Mumbai and I had more access to Herby than ever before. And with teenage adrenalin running in my blood and seeing kids drive cars, I too fell for the desires and wanted to drive . Alas my first big problem, the parking spot which was allocated to us was way in front and with the lane narrow the only way out to the road was to reverse all the way back. Thus began my biggest dilemma, if I needed to get my hands on Herby, unlike all others who would go forward my journey began backward.

Unlike Jaipur I did drive the car forward in the 1^st and 2^nd gears; this was about using the reverse gear  I still remember the first day of me trying to get Herby out . I go out with all my enthusiasm to get Herby driven and my first few attempts were horrible , I would put the vehicle in reverse and as soon I realise the clutch ,katak jerk dum Herby would stop. Which is completely my mistake because I am not releasing the clutch properly ,and accelerating on time. After 15 maniac attempts of endless starting and stalling in the wee hours of afternoon , the grandmother from the next door house came out and asked , son what exactly are you trying to do. I lied stating that dad wanted me to take the car out to clean. Eventually after 3 days if endless starting and stalling I did move backwards and finally onto the road .Eureka and the first joy of driving all alone in the afternoon hours in the colony, flipping the gears 1,2,3 and when your adrenalin rushes . You hear your angel remind you about dad saying 4^th gear only in 40kmph, the evil mind saying go for it Shyam , hit the 4^th gear . Of course to achieve this I have to drive in my colony at 40kmph and with no idea of what is herby’s braking power and whether I would actually stop. 2 PM one hot afternoon , I stopped Herby facing the longest straight section of our colony , a distance of maybe 500 metres. The feeling in me was ecstatic , until then I have always gone in speeds of 40kmph or more  in Need for Speed , my much loved game on my pc and boy was I good at it, today I am at the wheel of a real car, a open road..

I would feel my palms sweat , but yea 1,2 , 3 and on the corss of 40 I hit the 4^th only to find Herby going silent much to my amazement., well matter achieved and then uh oh ! The road turning brake brake brake , I guess that’s what I was not prepared for , simultaneous movement of brake and steering and changing gears. To much to ask for , I put the car in neutral and shut the engine and slammed the brake. Hoooorayy my first driving at 40^th plus my first impression of rubber on the road. 

Herby – A relationship for miles and miles to go

Chapter 1 

Some time in 1997 –  The train chugs into Lucknow Station after a long really long journey 29 hours from Chennai. After my window seat experiences of being a little kid watching the tracks and train go clickety clack and to add to the icing , I was going to see my father in vacation time and this time its special because we have a Car . Stepping out of the station I see this little white gleaming maruti 800 bearing the registration DL3C F 7596. Like a kid bursting with energy , I asked what’s with the Delhi registration . Soon I was in the back seat being driven back home.

Thus begins the story of a car and the journey along with it .A car which saw through our different phases of life right from the first argument between mum and dad on it being crashed into a wall , the next time being driven into a Corsa by myself and yet came trudging along every transfer of ours across states. The car now has a name and is called Herby and I will be referring to car as him because today he is probably the only non living thing which speaks with me and vice versa . Sounds mad ? , well lets put it this way , for some a car is just a medium of transportation , takes people places and put you in a different strata of society oh the so called upper middle class. To me he is a friend an other side of me none have seen or will know until today .

I must admit , that I too was like that recognising the car as a machine which elevated our status symbol at the age of 14.And today when I think of the things I have done with Herby over the period of years , I only wonder and say , he sure put up with me and my tantrums. Back in Lucknow to the year 1997 m herby was maruti 800 bought second-hand from the company , a 1996 model 800cc engine and the perfect family car. The car that took us places, fun frolic , could take 8 people with 2 siting in the dikky with rear hatch open . Ahh well those were the days , the days when used to have dinner at 10 , run to the only Baskin Robbins in Lucknow at 12 AM midnight to have ice cream. My dad was a simple man and thus Herby did’nt get any fancy stereos or Air conditioning and till date doesn’t have the air conditioning or any sort of sun film .With the family being travel junkies , herby soon too followed along with us in the travelling sprit ,Herby has been driven to Delhi, Lucknow, Kanpur, Jhansi Jaipur, Ranthanbore, Sariska, Mumbai, Pune Mahableshwar and then what we thought was the final run to Hyderabad .

Hyderabad is where my love for Herby begins , where man and machine truly talked to each other and Yes I do believe that cars do talk to you and are your perfect companions.

Reaching Hyderabad in 2005 from Mumbai , was my first stint with Herby over long distance when I accompanied my dad in driving it down . Of course I did start driving in Mumbai when I turned 16 .

                                                                                                            To be continued

Tantrums of the office floor

Yawning away to glory at my desk and my fingers go bonkers on the keyboard this utterly slow Wednesday afternoon. It all started a little while ago when I pinged my friend out of boredom who sits in one obscure part of my floor. My office floor is so huge that one can actually cover end to end atleast a 100 metres. Well being in the confines of office ,I cant seem to think of anything else , but office means serious and serious not equal to me !

And thus comes out this blog. Its Christmas time and in our office most projects are shut down during the holiday period the work load is practically less. That’s whats been the inspiration to write his blog , the things people do to come to office and the things people do to be awake. To be honest , I am writing this blog to be awake , but one look around me and I can say there are atleast a bunch of people who are in the same boat as mine. The afternoon time doesn’t make it any better , normal day itself post lunch makes everyone yawn and boy is it contagious. Well firstly there are this category of typers ! Not typing work but on the chat window with friends across . And if they are in the most visible position they try their best to shrink the chat window to fit one non see able corner of the computer screen and it is indeed hilarious to note how the body is tuned for these people, If they find someone coming to them behind or they hear their names , flip flip goes the hands over the ALT –TAB ! .Pheww is their look on the faces and they realise its just their smoky buddy asking out for a smoke. Not me though cos my manager knows that my productivity is less when I don’t chat. LOL

Women on the other hand are ingenious creations by themselves , bolted to their head are the headfones and they can talk the whole day gossiping gossiping , I wonder who invented the hands free , they yap and yap and yet seem to find the art of doing work at a pace which cannot be quantified and yet if someone important comes around within 20 metres distance of their working space ,the inbuilt safety alarm kicks in …. And you hear her boss coming …. Ok bye tata see you .. the eyes from a bubbly laugh becomes a savitri stare. The keyboard suddenly starts going at a faster rate and a minute later the manager comes talking and all is wells ! And the alarm system also goes back to the mode faster than it kicked in , barely few steps the manager has taken , the left finger goes to the right side to hit the centre button and wham ! Redial tring tring …. Hey aah yes no yeaa..with a stretch boss had come so just update , now where were we begins the conversations again.

And then are these category of men who find themselves perennially single and want to make some impact .They ensure that that are on the fone closest to their nearest good looking girl and keep pacing up and down up and down . Sometime the desperation is so much , that even after noticing the fact that the person is not there , they still keep pacing up and down as if the horoscope guy ordered to do tht for 10 minutes and she will be there. I really pity the person on the fone , cos he is bloody bakra who has to bear his friends blabbering all cos he is pacing up and down at his fav girls desk.

Of course not far behind are the owls category of people ( both men and girls) , the ones who don’t want to be noticed that they are also looking for some fun in life. They keep staring into the computer screens and have the self modified bifocal eyes. Half the eye is on the subject and half the eye is on the monitor . I guess during that period of time their hands must be typing what they want to say to the girl/boy.

Discovery channel and animal planet too have helped in the art of sighting and seeing for the blokes and blondes in office . Usually word of mouth is the key to this aspect. The friend sitting next to you says , Hey your girl/guys has come and the next instant the person neck goes up by 8 inches and turns weeeeeeeee one full 780 degress faster than the security camera above their head and plong , their heads are strutted out in the direction of the respective. The last time I noticed this behaviour was in the African animals or the deers when they sense danger pop their heads out of the grass and run! For their lives. Well here we don’t run , we create the instant coffee break and CTRL+ALT+DEL is triggered !.

Speaking of coffee , the beverage kicks in caffeine and a lot other things , in most cases the little cup of coffee is the perfect alibi for the perfect evening office safari. Especially when coffee is in hand and the legs roam around the campus . The legs don’t roam for any fitness reason , its more for the colors which come out of the next door office at the particular time. That’s the time when you bunch of friends speaking together ,  where you see the ear at 45 degrees the fake smile at 90 degress while the eye is doing its 360 degrees.

Well mathematics was never my favourite subject but when it comes to doing calculations , I don’t understand from where the brain gets its ability to calculate judge and rate the newly found girl/boy in a split second. The other day my friend was coming along in my car and I muttered , looking at girl in the distance ,she looks nice , wish I can pull up ahead to get a better view to which my friend response . nopes don’t do it . I gave this bewildeed look and asked why not ? The answer was shes married .

All I could do was gulp , here I was just noticing her long hair and calculating that depending on the length of the hair , if she’s from a conservative , forward looking northie ,southie family with all the bloody RAM in my head. And the girl next to me says she is married .. howww! She retorts you noticed the hair I noticed the toe ring!

Now how women do it don’t ask ! of all the things , I guess that’s how they were made , to pay attention to the minute detail.

Anymore than this , I think I will have both the fraternity coming and butchering me. 2.55 on the clock and well spent 45 minutes penning this down in office. Hehehehehehe

Till the next one … happy viewing 

Rotating gear sticks and handling jalebis !

Long weekend for myself and here i am back to home sweet home for a three day holiday well spent at home.
Came in here on a Saturday morning by the overnighter bus, well something I cant talk much about , having got myself the last centre seat , squashed by 2 passengers on either side , the bus journey was ridicously uncomfortable . Perhaps the only consolation was that I was going home.


Does feel great to come back home , there a lot of things which make you feel happy , for starters my dog bruce with his nudges and stares. then is the food menu which i get to decide these days . And of course the feeling of being in known territory and location.


The run up to the weeks been particularly crazy , for starters the work load is so less in the office that I come to my workstation and am hiting the refresh button my mail box and just going through the odd things. Driving down the car to office was as regular as it can get until the other day , when the most shocking thing happened . It was peak hour traffic and I was inching my way to office , lost count of how many gear changes nut i was doing the ABC of driiving every minute , finally after an exhaustive 30 minutes the traffic was good enough to shift into the third gear when i noticed the gear stick touching my leg. That was one thing which has never happened , i put the car in neutral and figured that the stick was moving quite a but from its usual swing, I reached office and as i was parking i realise that my reverse doesnt engage !.


2 minutes later I decided to find my gears and went 1 , 2 ,3 ,4 and R , nope ! nothing one more try and then the whole gear stick comes in my hand and I really seemed like the guy making jalebis out of my gear stick.Well which essentially renders my car not movable considering that it doesnt have any mechanism to power the car.


3 hours later and the car was fixed by the maruti road side assistance. nice guys must say ,. And speaking of jalebis .. the friday was yet another smashing day , me and my friend were out on a mission to have pani puri and while we were driving back the clouds above looked menacing .


Bangalore rains are really funny , you could walk 200 metres and you would find yur self drenched in the first 100 metres and then sunny for the remaining 100 metres , dont ask me how ? but i fell its gods way of dumping a bucket of water on yur head . hehe


And thus this was another day of the bucket thorwing from the top , err actually a water leak i say not a bucket . It was pouring and it was quite a struggle driving in my old herby , the mirrors get fogged up and i have to constantly cleanup with a cloth in my hand . The cloth i used had some oily thing in it , i guess from my last wipe of eating something oily and soon my windscreen was all but hazy figurines and katrina's dance moves style oily foggy trails . Still i pushed onto my chat guy and asked for the pani puri , by now the rain was pretty hard and the chat guy gave both of us a stare as if to say , Pani puri in this weather ??


Well we really dint care , as long we pay for the pani puri , its his job to give us the service , and then we notice the hot hot jalebi counter being warmed up for the evening. Ahem temptations cant be stopped , hot jalebis on a cold wet day , perfect combination.


Soon the guy was rolling away his jelebis when we got restless and decided to try my hand at it , i was not better , i seemed to make vegetarian worms out of the batter while my other friend seemed good at it .


And then it was time to go home ....reaching there i find myself to a long lost friend of our who had lifted me during my first birthday and seeing me now . Hmmph some relative i thought and went up to pack my stuff for the evening journey to hyderabad,


Dinner at 9 and my fone rings , it was from the bus operator on which i was to go to hyderabad, he boomed over the phone in telegu , saar ekaada unaaru . I was like home ...>! Isnt the bus at 9 45 ???


I heard the driver mumble behind saying ask that idiot to sit at home ....cant get more embarrassing , soon there was an option where i could catch the bus at another location at 10 30.


Now it was a weird situation when you know the fact that you have missed the bus and you still continue to have dinner knowing that you have to catch the buss from another place.


Thank heavens ,i said and i run to catch the city bus , and sitting in my bus , i realise that i left my head fones behind . Cursed myself , i thought whhy is this journey so jinxed ..


Well little adventure self created ,, sure is fun !

Forgotten times and Revival of Relationships

Saturday morning in Bangalore city, here I am with some sense of mind to write down a blog. I proudly updated my Fb status to say that I am going to write.Hope the blog finds you all in good spriits and smiles . From my last blog 3 months back , things have dramatically changed so much that I did not find time to pen down and now with the duration being long , its pretty easy to lose track of few things.


Allright we begin by whizzing back into a time machine to myself post july . Having landed in Bangalore , I was indeed on a mission , to perform and and perform and nothing else. Of course to do this I had to put myself into my shell as i call it . Err the shell is a sort of a self change in me where i go into a framework where I shut down myself to everything around me be friends , family etc.Having moved to a new project here ,I channeled every bit of my energy to my work and am glad it did pay off. Of course its been at a cost of missing out on few meeting with friends , some strained relationships and conversations , am sure those who know me will understand and we will be back on track.


With loads of weekend work , the daily drive in Herby (my car) from home to office and back was the only pastime i really loved. Plus with work taking out my energy and an ever changing face book , was the perfect excuse to come home dinner and crash and then head to office.The months of August just whizzed by with the usual trips to home and chennai to spend time with grandad. The months of September and October is where things began to really get interesting. September was a trip to Mumbai and October to Delhi and all of it was on mission to meet friends and nothing else.


This time around , it was a well known fact that I loved Melbourne and i would whatever it takes to go back , but not without meeting my friends. And i had this goal to meet all my friends before i head back. Trip to mumbai was perhaps the most nostalgic , once again i cannot express my love for the city , there is something about it , and thanks to my new found photography skills , i captured some good memories videos of the Ganpati visarjan and stuff and as i did , tears rolled down my eyes . I probably looked like a grown up child weeping along as i walk the familiar streets of mumbai sad to leave it behind .


Perhaps the most happiest moments were meeting my classmates and then meeting my old Chinmaya mission friends . Oh well , I some times wonder why do we ever grow up and start working to be pushed around to diff corners of the world. Nevertheless that was some welcome break from my work and then was the month of October . But these 2 months september and october are the times when I was coming out of my shell and
getting back to some good old friends and stuff. My erstwhile melbourne gang was slowly beggining to meet up more so often , or should i say i started meeting them more often . We do have some few additions here in Bangalore with the local kannada speakin lingo colleagues , but thas ok .


Frequent meetup i guess just makes you inclined to let go of whats happened and look to the future , after all in this constantly changing world , what do you gain by not speaking to people ?


October is the month of sorts , the month i can describe as Work hard , Travel harder ,work was just at its usual pace going on and I had taken this break to attend one of my friends wedding in Dehradoon , yep you read it right . For most it was something crazy , but I dont be too nice to go all the way just to attend weddings , cos I was there to attend the wedding and meet my old friends as well , we had stayed in dehradoon when i was in my 1st grade. Those were the time when Dehradoon could be described as the ideal town as described by the ruskin bond books , slow,peaceful and serene were to words to be associated with . I was in for a shock of my life , having been made the capital of some new state called Uttranchal , the city was teeming with pollution and crowd and was more claustrophobic than ever before.


But all the worries were the thing of the past when i met our old landlords , they were like Potha aaaya ( grandsons come ) and the feeling of hospitality and the fresh alu parathas with butter and mint chutney in the morning ahem ! Nothings gonna beat that .


Playing with kids was the order of the trip and post the wedding it was time to leave for Delhi for another pit stop to meet another set of friends .Well due to the the week being the run up to formula one , my nose was so excited that it began runing and runing and runing non stop ,hehehe ! Wat an excuse for ill health ...


And to make matters worse , I booked a ac train to delhi and the Night train found me soakin my towel in complete water blowin blowin ,,, and soon i was overheating in 100 degree temperature. By the time the train chugged into the New Delhi station , i was pretty weak with a temperature and just telling myself that I am meeting my old classmate and pushed myself to reach her place on the delhi metro. One of the few things in India where I am so proud that my taxes have been put to good use..


Well luckily i was meeting my friend who is a doc and so are her parents , so i knew i was in safe hands and swiftly i was given medication .....And by afternoon the medicine did take its effect to make me feel better which I feel was a gross assumption , we ventured out to connaught place and I was loafing around when my health deteriorated and we had to rush back home . Slumber slumber and by evening , me and friend were yapping away to glory catching up on lost time and soon our old day instincts kicked in ,, we went out to the nearest sweet shop grabbed a brownie with ie cream and allu tikki ,sneaked it back to the house and watched wake up sid.


Call it coincidence or telepathy , watching a scene we looked at each other and were like can we have the tikki !  And soon with gross disrespect to my sickness we began eating allu tikki and brownie ...Well its a matter of choice as I wont get to do this again soon . The feeling of meeting a good old friend can not be quantified in any manner , its has its own charm .


A day later I was on my flight back to Bangalore for a 8hr work and then again on the bus to Hyderabad for Diwali....


A true journey indeed , though hectic , took me back into old times and memories worth living and of course penning down.


Well that sums up this blog , with a honest intent to get the next one pretty soon ....


Till then


Peace

The true colours of life ......

Yet another Saturday morning and after my morning cuppa filter coffee , comes the much needed enthusiasm to write my blog. It is also more so as one of my ardent readers complained that I need to write one blog as its been a long time.


So where do i start from ...... so many things to type down. Okay for starters I am back in India after a good year and three months from Melbourne. One of the trips where I can with all due respect can tell myself that I heralded myself from a pampered brat to a little responsible fellow.


The last few weeks in Melbourne were just packed with work , but that did not stop me from not being my adventurous self.I continued my passion for driving and photography till the last moment for boarding the flight.Most significant was my truly maverick 1160 kms drive from Geelong to Sydney all by myself to meet my dads old pal. One of the best drives I have ever taken for a long time all by myself .I used to do a lot of solo drives in Hyderabad and i guess i was just preparing myself for the same .


Well Melbourne is now past but memories and colors will remain etched for some time .Perhaps the most intriguing aspect during my last few days of stay in Melbourne was how colours change. Well I am not talking about colors of weather or nature , they are such wonderful things in which you cannot find mistakes.


The colours I am talking about is the change in people , the way people change in one swift move and yet again it is me to blame. For some reason in Melbourne , i decided to override my own golden rule of taking time to know people.And now i face myself with this situation where i say to myself , shyam you became the tissue paper yet again. The very people with whom I was in Mel soon proved they were born in the world of this ruthless world of competition and the fact that all is fair in it.


Of course its a ruthless world , but when you play the tricks with the person whom you lived day in day out and you stomp him and go up , sure someone has to be hurt . It was indeed weird to be in that spot , just goes to say , i still have to learn to stop letting people figure me. I could even fathom these things , but one thing stands out a lot , where in some of my so called close friends in Melbourne return to Bangalore and then after that , it seems like they have just had a partial amnesia. Ouch ! Not a single form of communication for all the proximity we had in Melbourne. Of course India is different , but that doesn't mean that other forms of communication is not there.


But one thing i am truly happy about is a handful few who have just been the same no matter what the location is , and perhaps they are here to stay .But again there is this constant rebellion in the brain against itself to say .. don't do the mistake again. History may not repeat itself , but i don't forget my past either .


And that quite sums up my blog title -- the true colours of life ....


Until my next one ... hopefully pretty soon


peace to all

Why managers dont know management

It’s an early morning on Saturday and I was reading my dad’s note on his plan to retire soon. Recently there was a note which I had written about employee employer relationship which was a highly debatable topic. So much was the interest in the topic that most of friend atleast hit the thumbs up button. And today when I sit back and do a little introspection, I stumble upon a little fact which is a big hindrance to my aims or growth. 

It all started a few days back when I being the greatest idiot as in the senior most duffer in my team was left behind in the race to be the point of contact by my team lead. Instead my team mate who was 6 months new but apparently 3 years older to me was made the deputy in my leads absence. At that moment I was probably letting more steam from my head than a steam engines boiler. I was pretty disappointed at that and to add fuel to the fire, this teammate of mine was throwing his weight around being bossy and comes and asks ' so what are you doing shyam’. Did I deserve this? Certainly not and then he talks about me being non compliant and I was left fuming. But soon I kind of settled in to my normal self. As I was doing my usual job, I noticed this teammate of mine running helter skelter trying to solve issues. I pitied him because he really had no clue whats going on. He was learning it the hard way. But that’s where my head began thinking. WHY was he made the deputy and not me? The answer is somewhat very clear and known to me. 

It’s in the style of work; I am a humorous, fun going that enjoys work and doing it with passion. It’s this attitude of mine which is now a big hindrance to my growth. Why?? Because we Indians are so used to having authoritativeness.

From what I can assume and is purely my opinion ,I often get a feedback stating shyam grow up be mature.I would say it’s not about growing up or being mature , hell with you guys if you talk about maturity for a kid would not write notes like these.

It’s how we Indian managers are groomed, we are so used to having the ' I am the boss attitude ' and get things done in a 'Do it ' manner and I just hate that. Having an authoritative attitude and being bossy is not the only way of management. I am sorry but half the technical guys who have done engineering will never understand this and they are just work horses who will go in one direction because their eyes are tied. When I leant management from my Graduate studies there are different styles such as the Democratic style, Lassie Faire style and the bossy style. 

I prefer the Lassie Faire style for a reason that mostly my peers are often older to me and I cannot be a boss to them to lead teams. My role would be to get the best out of them and respect them for what they are capable of. And nowhere is it written that managers have to be bossy and you know order things and act like one. They call me immature for the simple reason that I don’t follow their style of management of being the boss. 

I just can’t help thinking ... The aim in organisations is to get the job done and most managers job is that whether by himself or from the team. So it really shouldn’t matter what style of management is used because what really should matter is whether the job has been done. But now time and again I have noticed , we Indians leads and managers only consider work as done only when it has been ordered , bullied thrown to team members. And it is this style which has been followed on across managers to teams who then become managers so yes eventually even the bloody team member becomes the horse. 

And when I do it the other way, and still get things done, it’s termed not mature to be managerial. I may laugh play around, have fun but at the end of day I can get my things done. And it need not necessarily be achieved through being authoritative.

But this style is so inate in us, the other day my senior manager comes to me and says be like him. I hate being like him because I am not him. I am shyam for god sake!!!

One more of my thoughts which is highly debatable. 

So does free style of management still have a value in Indian manager’s books and organisations? Looking forward to hearing from you guys and oh yes my dad too.

Morning Rush and Gold Blush

 

Kindly take all reasonable steps to purchase your tickets was the sign board on the train as i grabbed a seat along with my friend for a Sunday morning adventure. I wondered what they meant by that line , cos I had taken the escalator and did not climb any steps. Lol ! Myself and Ramesh , one more friend of mine decided to go to Ballarat , a little town on the outskirts of Melbourne on a bone chilling day at 13 degrees. I was excited at the prospect of a train journey as this will ensure me ticking off travelling by all means of transport on land ,sea and air. I always used to look at these funky looking aerodynamic trains called the Vline , as i walk across the southern cross station. Today I was on one of these so called high speed trains in Australia. First impressions were nice with me checking the foam , the interiors and legroom of the seats. I looked at the coach and see just a few people seating scattered all across the coach. I wondered to the colossal waste of infrastructure , 50 people and a 300 seater train. Well what do i care , i said to myself and gazed at the window seat as the train made It way out of the station and then was this irritating sound which goes like rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr the humming sound of the engine . To my utter dismay the vibrations of the engine could be felt all over the coach, so much for advanced technological coaches, trains back in India never have these things and its just the sheer pleasure of hearing the clickety clack , clickety clack of the tracks as the train rumbles along. And then are these windows shielding you from the elements outside. 


Hated the eerie feeling sitting in the train , I just love train journeys for the fact that I can gaze at the window seat with diesel soot smelling air or the whiff of the brakes on my face across the country side. Nothing beats the sleeper class coaches of India. 2 hours later as we reached Ballarat , we were ushered in straight onto a waiting bus where the bus driver was giving us instructions when he said that he would pick us back by 3 30 . There was this Chinese girl who said in a thick accent , bus leaving at 4 30. The driver said no , its 3 30 and after which i lost count of the time he had to reiterate stating its 3 30 , on my last count he said at least 17 times.


10 minutes later and we enter Sovereign Hill , home of the Gold rush , this is the place of the 19th century gold rush in Australia where large gold deposits were found. The place was really nice with the feeling of one being transported into a time machine back to the past. The setup and people in the periodic costumes made it so realistic and me and ramesh enjoyed every bit of it. And the ride was ended with a very nostalgic horse drawn carriage ride. By 3 o clock we were done and we were walking the streets of Ballarat scouting for food . And food was there indeed at 5 bucks , to our amazement regular pizza and drink at 5 dollars. We wondered if 3 pm still meant lunch cos the offer said so , we hungry souls went in and asked , err is that 5 thing still valid ? to which the lady replied yes it is , job done and as we waited for the pizza , one of the guys in the shop removed the 5 thing and out revealed another offer. Me and Ramesh gave each other the pheww look. 


Pizza on the backpack and off we went on the beaten track to the bus ready to drop us off at the station. The train back to Melbourne was at 4 10 , so we settled down one the station benches to have the luncheon. Ramesh and myself were chomping away and suddenly from nowhere the pizza box from his lap went flying in the air did a flip over and landed smack on the floor . It was quite a scene , we both had pizzas in our mouth and we just were gazing at each other eyes rolling side to side with the oh shit expression !. Luckily the pizza was inside the box and escaped contamination. Back again on the train and this time after the half box pizza in the tummy , we escaped the humming sound of the train by putting on the headfones. The last i remember was some regional number playing in my ear and i had gone zzzzzzzz. I woke with a startled look when i heard the voice 'Tickets please'. Some power nap it was for 45 minutes , both me and Ramesh woke up just what a place to get up . We opened our eyes when the train was at a station called Sunshine. Home sweet homies in 30 minutes and crashed to my lower berth couch in my room. 


Until next time ....

Of Criticisms and Inspirations

I certainly did not expect to come back so soon with another blog in such short span of time.Welcome back again to my  blog . Hmm its the weekend as i pen this down . Apologies for the frequent downtime on my previous blog post , it had to be tweaked and tweaked .


Well the days preceding the weekend was just as usual , I had to change places to be in more proximity to my team , there was nothing new as such cos the new place where i was going to was pretty routine for me , as i used to sit there in my weekend working. My manager came across and with a beaming smile said 'Shyam , you have to shift , i thought maybe the smile was a nice one and smiled back and guffawed oh no i am not shifting . She gave back with a smile saying 'Oh yes you are with a wave of  energy to which i refused again , until the writing was clear and the tone a lot more crisp like a Shyam ! . Uh oh now thats not a person speaking , thats my manager ordering , i said to myself and politely obliged.


I thought the shifting was a big ordeal , pheww the moving of the monitors and stuff and cleaning up of my new table. Imagine , it was me ! saying my place needs cleaning , one of my teammates passed me a few wet wipes to clean. As i was cleaning the table , i noticed the whiff of lavender kinda babyish lavender , and i asked hmm nice smell to which my team mate said oh you like it , its baby wet wipes !.


Hours skipped by and soon it was the evening of the friday and boy was weekend already in .The weather dint seem it was gonna hold up ,darky clouds loomed across the streets as I walked along the CBD and generally window shopping some dvds . I grabbed 2 of em which were on sale and went home. Quick cofee and i grabbed my couch to finish my 2 states to where i left it. 3 hours later i was done with it and then i started watching transformers 2 and finally hit the sack at 2 am . Beep beep goes my microwave as the clock struck 11 . And from then I had only 2 angles to my body , either it was 90 up on the laptop or 180 on the couch . And if my mum reads this she will probably freak out and by now uttering oh my god , shyam please change thing.


But hey I finally moved from 180 to a sudden burst if energy to clean up my house and shower to be a lot more presentable . Evening was raining again and then back to the non rental house. Those who don't know what is the non rental house , go back 2 blogs to figure out.


And Shriya gave me the gossip of my blog , apparently my previous blog had created some masala to be spread across, obviously the masala creator would have been the masala recipient , which is why newton 3rd law has happened and of course news goes faster with girls than the channel 7 or ndtv. 
And now I was thinking , wats next , i really dint feel happy to tweak my blogs and of course it was a kind of criticism and i decided to put my criticism to really more inspirational blog writing . And with that fire in me , i began writing this blog and I am actually done.


Seeya all in my next one 

Whining day and getting to know ananya !

Statutory Disclaimer
The characters and incidents portrayed and the names herein are not fictitious and any similarity to the name, character and history of any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintentional. So you have 3 choices , either close this window or learn to write blogs or develop a sense of humour to appreciate them.


Whrrrrrrrr goes my table fan about a foot away from me as it tries to cool my ever so hot laptop. These days my laptop goes berserk , the so called notebook of mine becomes a hotbook on constantly being on facebook.

The morning was the laziest of all, I got up at 7 30 and made some coffee for myself and then scoured around my ramshackle room to see wats there ... and yea the clothes bag was full. As I just lazily sipped my coffee ,I opened my office laptop , I don’t know why I bought it the day before , I guess some intention of working , does it ever happen ? No way and here I was logging in to my office laptop in nothing but my shorts, ahh the feeling of doing hard work in nothing but Bermudas! I had some work to be done at home so took a half day work from home.
Normally work from home would mean logged in loafing out , well as always I was in working this time around as well listening to my favourite numbers from old Hindi songs.

I hit a problem when running a few things at work and immediately moved onto my communicator to catch hold of a team to help me out, we called them the NV team and by far the most hated team by me .Not that they were a pack of bad humans, but yea they were this highly intelligent set of people who thought mistakes is never in their dictionary and that they are always right. I tend to disagree with that concept because humans do make mistakes and if there is anyone who s probability of making mistakes is less ,its gotta be those lifeless things that make card board boxes or fancy cars called robots.

I was breaking my head to get things sorted out, and sent a mail to some gizmo geek who is known to solve these issues, when my manager's mail came scathing to my mail box fuming away that I had not used the right channel. I was grumbling to glory on reading it and promptly pinged an apology on the office messenger. Soon the issue got sorted out and I was just working away to glory and came across these odd jobs, afternoon time and after a quick shower made my way to the office.


Post lunch was the usual with some training and bouncing towards the fag end of the day, went out for a little stroll and came back. I had forgotten some little piece of work and went back to my desk to wake my computer again. Not the usual me to be so dedicated , heheh I had my reasons , one little peek over my cubicle and I could see my boss still there , so yea golden rule , don’t leave before the boss, was to be maintained. Lol. Evening ish and I make my way towards the exit and when I saw Shriya running the other side, Shriya is my office colleague, but we are more best friends than office colleagues. One of my other friends Anu was leaving the next day and as I walked passed her, I quickly yapped that I am going to anu's place and will meet up soon in 30mins.


They say never give a girl a time cos they aren’t good at it either, but yea blunder was made. I was just coming out of Anu's place to leave home, when Shriya buzzed and asked on my whereabouts and I promptly replied just starting from anu's place. She was like saying bye huh! , I sheepishly said a half baked ya!


Not that I dint want to say the truth , but I could sense that she was pretty miffed at me not coming in my said 30 mins and its gonna be more and ever since Poorthi gave me the tagline, the 'there for all ' guy which I have been vehemently denying that I am not , things weren’t to good .


Soon the miffedness of Shriya was to be felt, when I reached her place a good 90 mins later, much to my disappointment of seeing empty nandos chips and sauce. The only thing left was butter buns. Made my way to grab one but in less than a minute all were in my tummy. Prasad was there as well , and yep I had to be the topic of yet another scathing and slow digging , which I don’t quite mind, until the girl shot her one liner like this smart weapon , so wats all your girl friends saying , mr there for all .


I kept mum and dint say a word, I certainly was not too happy too hear that, but I didn’t want to defend either cos I know my defending will be little messy. I was telling myself , probably yea , next time she says there for all , I should just go up about my routine and not tell where and what I am doing cos then she is no person special that I tell her . Do I say it, no! and it irks me even more when those 2 gang up and pull my leg harder , Perhaps it is more so cos Prasad ends up meeting all the other girls and sometimes more frequently and he doesn’t get pulled or rather I don’t really bother to be so stoopish to pull his leg . All these were just in my head and still I hadn’t uttered a word. 15 mins later when Prasad left home, I was left behind reading the odd books and struggling with a very irritating back pain.


I grabbed the laptop to see any fb messages , none were there and that was when I grabbed the 2 states book , that book interested me for a long time , my mum had it and it was written by chetan bhagat as well .
I started reading a few pages when I was getting to know ananya in detail. Relax guys! Ananya is chetan's gf in the book and as he kept describing his meetings with ananya, so am I also on the same path.


The book was certainly pretty humorous and as I read the pages, I realised that I loved chetan's book for his simplicity in writing wherein you can relate your self from a common man perspective especially if you are in the same age group. When I started my blogs I used to write like those until somewhere I became a jerk and wrote stuff too mundane and not having that masala touch.


My mind went tizzy and happy too as if I found some lost part of it , soon dinner was ready and me and Shriya were hogging away to glory with the distant drums of the Chinese new year going clang bang , the muted TV and the laptop showing noting hill , a Julia Roberts movie . I very vaguely remember seeing the movie before, but yea no worries with the 2nd watch.


So dinner was done and as noting hill was going on, I noticed that I missed my tram; I was offered so stay until the next 10 mins when the next tram arrives. By now I had decided to express my displeasure with the statement she made, but maybe I was inspired to do something crazy to just convey my thought and yet now take it so serious.


Thinking this , I missed my 2nd tram as well , but nah I was sensible to get out and on my out , I yelled to Shriya as I was slamming the door , ' I am not meeting any girl friends tomorrow '. She went inside the room and I was like gosh you dint hear it!!! Nah 2 seconds later she rewinded back to the place where she has to enter the room and asked WHAT! So you had some other plans? To which I shot back, Na! I am not the there for all kind of guy. I think I made my point there and was continuing to read 2 states on my way back home.


Big thanks to the book, cos thats the one which inspired me to write this blog and finding my bearing in my blog world of English language.


Till the next one


Seeya all, peace and love