Lady in Red – Part II

Shocking!!! I realized that it was not an accident but a film's shooting and that lady (beautiful lady in red) was the lead actress of film. I have seen her so many times on big screen (That’s why she looked familiar). Director shouted at me for spoiling the scene. Everybody was laughing and I felt embarrassed. To hide my embarrassment, I argued with director about blocking the road and asked him to leave some space for traffic to pass through. He showed me the permission from local traffic police to shoot on this road for 2 hours. Since the shooting was almost over, they started packing up. I quietly went back to my car and tried to ignore everybody. Suddenly, I see the lady in red coming towards my car. I thought of another moment of embarrassment coming towards me and thought of ignoring her. (How could I ignore such a beautiful lady? This would have been biggest insult to God's beautiful creation). I finally rolled down the glass of window and she apologized for any confusion and embarrassment that I had to face. I felt relaxed that it is not going to be another unwanted scene. I invited her to sit in the passenger seat and we exchanged pleasantries. After some time, she introduced me to all the members of unit. I finally felt good after meeting everyone and asked them to sign autographs for me. I was so thrilled that leading lady of Indian cinema is talking to me.

After waiting there for almost two hours, I finally said bye to everyone and went on to pick up the food. As soon as I reached the restaurant, I found it closed (Why do all the restaurants close at 11). I knocked the door and one the table attendants came out. I asked him about status of my order and he showed me his watch. He murmured few words about people placing the ordering not coming to pick it up. He told me that my order was given to somebody else because I didn't turn up. I was feeling bad because my wife was waiting for me at home for the dinner. I went back home with a huge disappointment. I didn't know whether I should express my disappointment for not getting food or excitement for meeting the lady in red.
Eventually, when I reached home it was 11:30 in the night and my wife had already gone to bed. I cooked stewed rice and had dinner at around 1 in the night (or in the morning). Next morning, I told my wife about my experience with lady in red and to my surprise she didn't ask anything about the food (What a great wife she is). And finally before leaving for office, I told her about the food and I was happy that she didn’t get angry.

Lady in Red – Part I

Yesterday both my wife I were not in the mood to cook so at around 9 PM, we decided to order from nearby Punjabi restaurant. I called the restaurant and placed the order. Since they had shortage of delivery boys, I asked them to keep the food ready for me to pick it up. My home is only 2 KM away from this restaurant but it has 5 signals on the way (Can you believe this? A signal every 400 mtr?) I thought of avoiding the signals and went from residential layout. Little I knew what is waiting for me around the next turn. I took the next turn and found a huge crowd. There was no scope of maneuvering around the group and I couldn't even reverse because there were four more cars behind mine. Since I couldn't do anything to get out of that place, I tried to find out the reason for gathering. I came out of car and found an accident, where a motorcycle got slipped and boy, with blood all around, is lying on the road with his head in a lady's lap. (Who is that lady?) Lady looked familiar to me but in such a sad situation, I couldn't gather enough courage to ask whether we have met before. I went to help her but as soon as I was about to come out of crowd, couple of people stopped me. I started preaching them about helping a helpless lady. I preached them a lot and suddenly I heard "CUT".

Journey from fatso to dude

Few months back I woke up on a beautiful Sunday morning and went to the balcony of my bedroom. It was a nice weather that day. Sun was out, cool breeze was flowing and watching people enjoying their morning walk and jog was the experience of a lifetime. My wife brought a cup of tea (so sweet of her) and I started enjoying the same while watching people of all age groups.

All of a sudden I was reminded that I can also do something to shed the extra pounds, I am carrying around my belly. So I set the target of getting rid of all the extra fat. I went to a gym and discussed my targets with the instructor. He made few rounds around me (I wondered whether I am so big) to validate if my targets can be achieved. He gave me an exercise plan for next two months and also suggested me to follow a diet plan too. I started following the exercise plan. It included swimming, jogging, stomach exercises and all those exercises, whose name even I don't know. And guess what, within two weeks I lost about ten pounds of weight. I started getting myself fit into the clothes, which were not able to accommodate me before I started the exercise. It motivated me further and I pulled out older clothes, which were not that big enough for me, from suitcases. I completed two months of exercise schedule and lost considerable amount of weight.

On the persuasion of my instructor, I continued the exercise for another 4 months and guess what, I had such a flat stomach, which can put even John Abraham (famous Bollywood actor) to shame. After observing the progress, my instructor advised me to develop some muscles and abs. I started working on my abs and got brilliant six packs. Since my instructor had a good reputation, lots of Bollywood (Hindi film industry) stars used to visit him during their Bangalore trip. One day, when I was working on my abs, Hrithik Roshan (another famous Bollywood actor) came to visit the gym instructor. Instructor told Hrithik about how I got transformed from a portly.

Suddenly somebody asked Hrithik about, who has better six pack, between Hrithik and me, and as soon as he was about to say something, my alarm clock started shouting. I checked my belly and all the extra pounds were still there (Oh no how can this happen to me). With huge disappointment, I got up from bed and started getting ready for another day in office.

Tiredness after sleep

There is a suggestion everybody gives whenever I feel tired. It is not something which is thought provoking, but after following the suggestion I was forced to think about the credibility of it. You must be thinking what suggestion can be so thought provoking. It is "Go and relax. Sleep for an hour or two and you will feel fresh". This morning when I got up, I was more tired than what I was at the time of sleeping. I did some introspection but couldn't find the answers to the questions like "Why am I tired after sleeping 7 hours?", "Why am I sweating like I have jogged for 10 hours?", "Why should I sleep if I get tired after it?", "Am I doing anything wrong while sleeping?" (What the hell can I do while sleeping. Damn it! I am anyway sleeping).

I thought of finding the answers of all these questions. Firstly, I think I was feeling tired after sleep because my brain was still working. I had lots of dreams (with a fair share of sweet ones). Now how can I switch my brain off? How about few drinks before sleeping to switch off the same? (But my other logic says, after drinking brain starts working faster.) Or sleep less as per the assumptions of item number 3 below? (But if sleep helps relax, how can sleeping less relax me?) Will try both of then and tell you in my next blog.

Secondly, I was sweating because it was very hot in Bangalore (unfortunately not because of chicks). In such a hot night, if you sleep with a blanket, weighing 2 kilos, you are bound to sweat like an athlete. So what is the solution? All of you must be thinking of advising me to pack the blanket and put it in cupboard. But I am not going to follow your advice and I am going to buy an A/C. (AC in Bangalore? It still raises lots of eye-brows, whenever I discuss the same). Now with AC, I can keep the blanket and get up without sweat.

Third question is very interesting. It prompts me to think, what else I can do to relax because anything I do in excess is going to tire me off. So just to make sure, I don't do anything in excess, I will have to diversify my portfolio of things to do to relax. I will publish the portfolio later.

Last but not the least; I tried to find the things I am doing incorrectly while or before sleeping. I analyzed various things like changing the position while sleeping, changing the position of headrest, flipping the sides of mattress, changing the bed sheets & pillow covers. Apart from these I also thought of switching from shorts to track pants and from t-shirt to kurta. But none of these things seem to convince me. So the bulb of my mind got ignited and I thought of having a bath before going to bed. (Bulb and bath? Do they have any relation?) Will try and let you know the results.

On the basis of above assertions, I conclude that sleep is not the only thing, which relaxes somebody. There are number of other factors along with sleep, which helps a person recuperate. So next time you find somebody tired, think before you say "Go and relax. Sleep for an hour or two and you will feel fresh".

Feelings of my couch

Couch, is one thing, with which I sympathize a lot. I try to understand the feelings of my couch lots of times. More I try to understand, more I sympathize with it. Couches in general are used to bear the weight of lots of people and if one of them is a person like me, who has few (am I sure or is it an understatement) extra pounds, it increases their workload. It seems like an autocratic employer is harassing the employees.
Generally, my couch bears me for 2-3 hours a day and rest of the time it breathes easy. However yesterday, being the famous India - Sri Lanka league match, couch was tortured for 8 continuous hours. I reached home at 7:15 PM and jumped on it (if there were a government of couches, they would have banned everybody jumping on them after this incident). I was jumping, shifting and adjusting myself after every wicket, misfield and drop catches (I am sure my couch must have started hating cricket after this experience). In addition to this, I was shifting from one end of the couch to other end because I was getting bored by sticking to one place for a long time (I never knew that my boredom can be so torturous for anybody). This went for 2.5 hours and by that time, my couch was expecting me to leave but that poor fellow did not know that it was an 8 hour match and I had the plans to watch full match. After 3 hours, at around 10 PM, my couch started breathing heavily. It may be preparing itself for another one hour of torture till the first innings is finished.
Finally the first innings of the match got over and I went to serve dinner for myself. My couch started jumping for getting the freedom. But this happiness was not the thing to last very long. I filled my dinner plate with rice & curry and came back to sit on the poor fellow again. All the joy of my lovely couch evaporated within moments. I am sure it didn't even get time to settle down properly during the break.
After another 2 hours, my couch started huffing and puffing heavily and finally, at 2 in the night, one of the cushions gave up and fell on the floor. Other friends of the fallen cushion were crying over the terrible condition of their friend. Eventually when I picked up the cushion, I realized that it has been 7 long hours of sitting a heavy-weight like me and couch is not used to such a heavy load (like me) for such an elongated duration. Finally for the sake of better health and my comfort in future, I shifted myself to extra large sized (that's what you need to fit myself) bean bag for the last one hour of match. I will tell you the feelings of bean bag later.

India Srilanka match - group stage

Today is a special day for all the cricket lovers in India as India is going to play with Sri Lanka in next 6 hours for a place in Super 8 of ICC world cup. I have never seen so much anticipation about any match. Everybody is cricket expert in his/ her own right and giving his/ her expert opinion (as if their opinions hold any value for Rahul Dravid & team). I have even seen people (including me), who don't even remember when did they play cricket last, giving their expert advice. I am tired of listening: India should bowl first, India should drop Agarkar, India should play Pathan.
In my office, people are forming group so that they can watch match together and support Indian team. Some people are wearing blue shirts (I am not wearing blue and if you curious about the color I am wearing today, it is ..... RED) to support team India. I ask those people, who are wearing blue, that Sri Lankan outfit is also blue. I am not sure how many people are wearing same shade of blue as that of Indian outfit.
Newspapers are filled with cricket news (good for me but even I am not used to reading 7-8 pages of sports news). I pick up newspaper from the apartment door and front page is cricket. I always read first page thinking at least I will get some news about country, world, neighbors, etc. but these newspapers are disappointing me since the last 5 days. Anyway, I will keep reading all the sports news till they publish.
Just now I have got an invitation from a friend of mine to watch cricket at his place. He has invited me with family (thank god) so that all of us can enjoy (hopefully) cricket, food and drinks (no specified order). I am still not sure whether I will go to his place or not. Need to check with my wife (mentioning my wife because I have got complaints that there is no mention about her in my blogs).

Tell me guys who do you support? I know I have lots of personal things to do but still I will watch match. I may wear blue while watching match to support Team India or I may not wear blue. Because I don't care about blue. All I care is the Team India winning. So guys and gals, get ready for the match. Support team India. They need us right now and I am asking support for our team from all of you. As Nike says "Just do it" and don't think about it. I am sure we will win. And who knows that Indian win can fetch you a surprise gift.

A night to forget

Yesterday, I came back from office at usual time and spent an hour with social networking and stock analysis websites. I had the plan of relaxing for some time and then start studying followed by dinner. I studied for one hour before having dinner but during dinner I got interested in Pakistan/ Zimbabwe match and spent (wasted) considerable amount of my time there.
At 11 PM, I went back to the study room and studied for another 1.5 hours. After this I wanted to go to bed so that I can get up early and continue my studies. But fate had some other plans for me. I switched on TV and match was interesting. Number eleven batsman of Pakistan was hitting sixes. I couldn't believe it bcause in the last match against Ireland, their best batsman was not able to hit even four. After all the sixes and excitement, when I saw the pendulum clock on bright orange wall, it seemed like a bomb fell on me. It was 2 in the morning and sleep had evaporated out of my eyes.
Finally, I thought of finishing one more section of the text book and it was 3 by the time I finished that. I was insomniac at 3 in the morning and the thought of going to office in the morning was bothering me. So I pushed myself to bed and tried to sleep but the sleep-lady was pleasing somebody else. Still I kept myself on bed and I don't know when I went into the world of sweet (am I sure?) dreams.
Somwehere around 5:30 or 6 in the morning, I woke up out of a nightmare. I saw that I failed in the exam. Can you believe that somebody is studying till 3 in the morning and still getting nightmares of failing the exam. Anyway, I had couple of sips of water from the bottle lying next to me and slept for one more hour before getting ready for another routine day in office.