Football, bombs and intersection

Today, I went to play football.

I walk from 80 feet road in Koramangala (all Bangalore) to a rather large shopping mall called Forum and cross over to the other side, where I get a pick up from the captain to the company grounds.

Then after the match I get a drop at the same place and another 15 minute walk back.

Today, at the Soccer Saturday practices, I scored 4 of the 17 goals in the game, all clean strikes. Good movement, a bit of trouble tracking back, but good positioning and tackling. Most importantly, stamina is going up. Now I can last the entire practices with only the half time break.

So, when I was coming back, I got a phone call.

Live bomb found, and defused at Forum.

Currently, the city of Ahmedabad is almost besieged.

You know what? The chinese have a proverb: May you live in interesting times. Original source (from Douglas Adams’ H2G2 project).

****Lack of words. ***Lack of words. **Entry truncated. *Go home everyone.

Bangalore bombed

The city was rocked by serial blasts this afternoon.

Nimish Batra, The recent adventures of!

REWIND!

Okay. So on Wednesday, I was supposed to leave for Mysore to attend this compulsory management training I’d missed when I went down with food poisoning in the city of Chandigarh.

I had an itinerary all worked out.

But I got an email – my unit in the company (one of around 30 odd units) was distributing branded bags to everyone who’d been here for more than 6 months.

Yay! But with about 4k people in the office from the unit, I thought it’ll be impossible for me to stick to my schedule. So I gave myself 15 minutes of delay and also went to the collection center 15 minutes early, thinking I could nudge them into giving me the bag alongwith the slightly senior guys.

Apparently, 300 other people had the same idea. Standing in line behind 150 people in a line moving inside an office to a meeting room to get a freebie – surreal. Really good bag though.

So I got an extra 15 minute delay, total 30 minutes. Which means that I miss the early bus out of the bus stand. Which means that I get to the interstate bus stop even later (extra trffic jam). Which means that I get a late volvo out of it, and reach mysore late, can’t eat in the company campus there, and auto-rickshaw charges me night-charges, and I can’t see anything.

Why? Because my glasses broke off a day earlier at the farewell treat of one of the company people – my housemate for the last month. And because I needed the Wednesday itinerary, I missed his early morning departure on Thursday. Also, lacking a charger, I was playing a complicated game balancing my music (iPod) and calling (phone) while figuring out things like where do they have food at this time and who all do I need to meet here.

So the internal adventures apart (there were many, but there’s no point telling them here without background, which’ll take around 4000 words in summary alone), I went bowling Thursday (first time evar!) getting scores of 80 and 95 (yea well not all of us can get 300 everytime you know).

Then I played for an hour and a half on a Nintedo Wii! Whee! One of the bloggers from the company internal blogging system had one! I started with Tennis (no double player, so he let me play all the time!), sucked at it, moved on to Baseball, couldn’t bat as well as pitch, moved on to Golf, was pretty bad at it, tried bowling, which was no match for the real thing, and finished with boxing, and rocked it! But at the end of two bouts, my arms were sore-numb in alternation, especially my right, which is my mainstay whether bowling or Wii-ing or writing etc. etc. etc.

When I slept off, I was dead tired, and unable to stay awake. Waking up the next morning, I found out my right arm had a sore-numb combination, and I was fatigued all over. Lunch was unpalatable and duly discarded, while evening snacks seemed the same (I caught an early bus while going out as well) and it was obvious that I’m getting a fever.

Now, the entire week had gone in anticipation of us entering a corporate football tournament in Bangalore. This has two barriers – since we’re weekend players and not a real team in the sense of a football club, the company wouldn’t have sponsored us. Also, it’s a corporate tourney, so we have to go from the company. So somehow we got permission (don’t ask).

Anyway, so it started looking like me wouldn’t join with the other 7. Also, the city had communal riots on Friday afternoon, so one area was under curfew for a few hours. Which meant that our intra-state bus was going to be delayed. But by the time we reached it was normal jams, and no curfew. So that bit was okay.

I reached home quite late, had half of a crappy dinner, gave up in disgust and slept, waking 8 hours later, and ready to play!

So we reach the venue, we get our complimentary kits (lacking only studs) and we draw our first match 0-0 (which speaks more about us playing badly – we were way below our usual stuff, maybe because we are used to 6-a-side in the park, maybe because we have low stamina, or maybe the wrong combination). I only got about 6 minutes out of the total 30 – I won’t be complaining though – I really don’t have any energy after this Friday.

We got a forward to keep – and he was good at it. But he said he wanted to play up top and not as GK, and we had to get another big guy to keep. This unfortunately broke our defensive tempo. And the keeper was not upto it, as the other team started firing first-time shots at goal instead of building attacks. We were done for 4-0, me getting around 6 minutes in the second game as well, and a total of 6 tackles in the match (one crucial) and probably four passes. I’ll be up for it next week. If we survive tomorrow’s knockouts.

We’ll play in the third division knockouts, the group toppers in the first and the middle team in the second.

Our colours were lemmon-yellow shirts and royal blue shorts.

Bangalore – 6 months on

So it’s been 6 months (net) I have spent in this city. Time for a review, eh?

Can I mention before we start that I’m not a night-life person? I actually sleep at nights (gasp!) and I can’t be bothered whether night-life exists or not.

Here we go.

I touched down in this city and spent two days at my relatives’ place in Indira Nagar. After that, I checked into a personalised disaster called Woodstock Ambience, who, by the way, are bad at money matters as well – they had trouble giving me my money back when I went to collect the remainder of my security deposit. Either they can’t count properly, or they have issues giving people there money back.

Here, in brief, is the entire city, as I saw it.

Sanctum Sanctorum

It’s just one of those things, you know?

Up until I reached Bangalore, my room was my fortress of solitude. My laboratory of introspection. My internet room. In short, MINE.

But alas, it is a sanctuary no more.

Radiohead @ Bangalore. … … OMGWTFBBQLOLROTFL… O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE -O-PLEASE !!!!!!11111one!!11

Please let it be true!

There’s a miniature rumour going on. PUH-LAYS TO BE TRUE!

 

( Google: Radiohead Bangalore I’m 2nd site as result. )

 

DNA Networks is concert organising company perhaps behind the move. I dunno. It’s a rumour. Do what you want, but there’s absolutely no fact. Probly won’t come – environmental concerns. *sigh*

Edit: I got pwnd. Quizzer @ work said, “I only said it to make you feel better.” This is a totally fake rumour. :’(

More photoblogging crossfiring.

They say every picture has a story. These also have one. I was bored and feeling pretentiously artsy.

I’M NOT GOING TO CHANGE THE DEFOCUSSED/PIXELY LOOK. Wokay?

Unless I can improve the pic to my satisfaction.

In continuum… and this too. Expect these in the photobook, which is officially halted.

Title:- The Alleys.

In retaliation, and gratitude

(This title can be the title of my biography – one of the fifty I’m hoping to write).

In response/thanks to this, I’m bringing out some photos that I have taken @ Bangalore. All the photos are clickable and link to the slightly-higher res versions.

Two devices have been used – Sony Ericsson Cybershot k550i phone @ 2.0 megapixels or less, and a Canon Powershot A720IS.

I have a shaky hand, and a slightly less than efficient eye for an angle. Practice helps, or so I hear.

These are 640×480 samples. I can give you upto 2048px (width) if you like, for these and the photos that will inevitably follow. This is my personal property (unless invalidated by a prior copyright) and I can make some available for you to use as wallpaper only.

Not to be included – shots of identifiable people (unless they consent), bad shots, shots I don’t like.

Here’s a sample – more when I plug myself into a high bandwidth link.

Title:- City Dusk.

Stop whisperin’ – START SHOUTING!

Dear sir,
I have a complaint
Dear sir,
I have a complaint,
Can’t remember what it is,
Doesn’t matter anway,
Doesn’t matter anway.

Here’s the update you’ve all been waiting for!

Especially all five of my regular readers – both Americans (Shout-out to David and GoogleBot), and both Indians (DK, THF) and me.

“I’d like to thank everyone I know, and everyone I don’t know, in alphabetical order” – General Specific, Sheep In The Big City.

I’d also like to thank YOU. Yes YOU. As TIME Person Of The Year 2006, I’d like to thank YOU for coming! There’s tea near the lobby! And chips!
Well today’s updates first.