hyd-mum-ahd-mum-hyd

I have never been a traveler in the real sense, although i immensely desire the image. I mean its pretty cool to be a guy who's toured a lot. Thats probably why i took extra time off from office and headed off to Mumbai. Now mumbai is not a favourite holiday spot, but its pretty okay for a starter.

the preps included buying a large livea trekking bag( which goes in perfectly with the tourist image), coercing my TM into granding two days of paid leave and saving enuf money to last 4 days in 2 cities( i also decided to catch a train to ahmedabad and take a luk at the akshardham temple).

One thing i hadnt planned for was the traffic in Mumbai. Lotto ppl say that bangalore is almost as crowded as mumbai, you know wot, they suck.

all 2 days i spent there, all i saw was the infinity mall, which is some 2 km frm the flat and takes 30 min on auto, and the CCD, where i had brunch both days. I could very well be the first guy who took off to mumbai on vacation and returned w/o seeing the taj or the gateway or the marine drive or nowadays, the leopold cafe.

By the way, spent a night at Firangi Pani. Rony paid.

Took the garib radh to ahmedabad next day, and swore i'd never do it again, the moment i stepped in. That reminds me, both Rony and me got in at the last minute. just before the whistle, to be precise. That was preceeded by we both reaching a wrong station, and that was again preceeded by me waking up late, which is not very uncommon.

Someone once told me that we NITCians have this bloody habit of keeping people waiting all the time. I mean we are always late and even if we miss a flight or two, we just refuse to learn.

Missing the train wouldnt have been a big loss in any case.

Still searching for the guy who said garib radhs are a boon.

for the record, Akshardham temple luks grand.

Im somewhat intrigued by this man called Swami Narayan( pardon me if there are any followers).

he built his own temple, and has very meticulously preserved his writings, the quill/pen he used to write those writings, the clothes he wore while he wrote them, the rope he used to tether his horse, the pichook he played holi with, and what not. His preserved tooth, nails and bodyhair were a revolting sight. but again, the temple looks marvellous.

got back on monday, went straight to office. I like it when you come back from somewhere and still make it to office on the same day. Frst, it saves you a day's salary (wage seems to be a more correct term); secondly, you get approval to leave early. I did both.

here i brag about being in a city and with some cash!

Say you are someone who lived in a village for the first 19 years, and you for all the luck in the world land up in hyderabad, and suddenly u realize u purse is heavier, how long will it be before you are dancing at a disco bar? --a day or two?

The point is, it took me a whole 9 months.

First things first, i owe my first visit to FireFly(which is almost the cheapest disco is hyd and still burnt a hole in my pocket) to Rony, who came all the way from Bombay to meet us and get a taste of what hyd is all about.

Now when a Bombay guy comes to town, you cant woo him with hyderabadi biriyani or a movie at Imax. (we watched 'WatchMen' on day one and if you are also not very satisfied with your life, go watch)

Since none of us here had been to a disco before, we just swallowed our pride and like true NITcians called up JustDial for the list. We kind of zeroed in on Firefly which is not very strict on couple entry, dont charge an entry fee and allow you to use the dance floor even if you dont have grls wid you. At that moment, Firefly was the place to be at.

The place looked rich( too dark to take snaps and show off later) and played good music. We went in a group of 5 (no girls, of course!) and were initially shown seats in some obscure corner from where the dance floor was just a dream. to our luck, the incharge was a mallu (the universal mallu-brotherhood is no longer a myth!)who made us comfortable and allowed to choose our seats; which we exploited to a great extent, placing ourselves at very strategic locations and irritating the grls on the floor.

There was a party going on in the middle of all this, i think 'twas some college in Banjara hills. There were a number of girls getting drunk and falling down every now and then- the pick of them being the one who was getting too slim her for her skirt, so that she had to pull it up,say every 30 seconds. The boys showed more maturity, puking only at the loo, and one guy almost breaking his leg trying to decide what is stronger- his bones or the door. There were also a couple who were swearing at each other for reasons unknown to us. We chose to laugh out loud and enjoy the scene amidst all this drama.

And finally when we got to dance, which i must say was a bonus given our looks and the noise we were making, we did all those moves(mallu guys know each other on a dance-floor through the salimkumar signature step) which made OAT nights very spl at college. We danced like Appan did in 2nd year, like Pulla did during ragam05, like Verkkan did in that funny video, like Mangal did after he got drunk.Boy! it was reunion; although we were all clean-shaven, with shirts tucked in.

Finally when it rang 12 and we got out, we had a glance at the girls, and we deeply regret doing that till this moment. We could in the least have left with the satisfaction of being at touching distance with divas,cuties and all those you have heard about.

The light and a clearer view spoilt it all. While none of them looked good even by the most generous evaluation, some even dressed as bad as anyone can imagine.

Maybe they tried some very advanced makeup which make them look good in the dark and as bad in daylight. I have absolutely no idea.

we lost 3.5k, by the way.