As the day broke, I woke up and fixed up myself a bit. I was thinking all night and was determined to solve this puzzle that has taken my life hostage. My phone was almost dead and was surviving on the last bit of battery life. I was just getting ready to go over the phone numbers that I had called the day before when my phone rang.

Surprisingly this was the first time my phone has rung since yesterday morning. Well, not much of a surprise given that I was in a dead zone almost all day and the entire night. Taking a walk into the open seems to have given me the luck I badly needed. I could recognize the name of the caller and answered the phone immediately. My joy knew no bounds when it was in fact one of my oldest friends calling me. Apparently everybody was worried that I hadn’t come home in the night. I was blabbering on the phone in excitement and wasn’t making any conversation. He understood that I was in some kind of trouble and offered to come get me. I asked him for specific directions on where to wait for him and got there as soon as he hung up the phone.

The fact that I hadn’t eaten in a full day doesn’t seem to bother me anymore. I wanted to meet someone I knew and he was going to show up anytime now. I was checking my watch and could see the seconds hand making its way round the dial. It was like the time did not want to move forward. In about 25 minutes my friend shows up in his car. I never knew he had a car. His looks were different too. He had grey beard and balding hair. But I knew who he was. He was surprised to see my state. He started off with his long questions but I wasn’t ready to answer. My only words were Take Me Home.

We took off immediately and in about 15 minutes reached the part of town that I didn’t even know existed. There were huge mansions everywhere. He drove me into a driveway and stopped the car. I got down and was waiting for him to lead me into the house. I wasn’t ready for any more surprises. As soon as the car stopped a group of guys came out of the house most of whom I knew as my best buds. They were asking me the same set of questions on where I was the day before. I was hesitating to walk in not knowing what was in store for me when one of them says ‘Your wife was worried all night.’

Wife? But I wasn’t even married the day before. This came as a shock to me but I was already used to getting these now. I slowly started walking towards the door when I see a familiar figure run out to me. I knew who she was. Whatever I have gone through in the last 24 hours no longer bothered me. It was her. It was her.

She never looked that beautiful before. She hugged me tight and tears started rolling down her cheeks. We went inside and as I looked around only one thing kept ringing in my mind. She was my wife. We got married. Everything in the house looked familiar yet new to me. There were a lot of folks there and everybody had the same questions. As I finally gathered my senses, I told them what had happened. None would believe me. Some were even taking this as some pathetic excuse for some mistake I have done. After a while, they gave me my earful and finally left.

When everybody was gone, she walks up to me and asks me what really happened. I told her that was the truth. I don’t remember the last 5 years of my life. I only remember waiting near the campanile bell for her and that was the last thing I know. She smiled when I asked her what had happened in the last 5 years and answered me ‘Everything that you wanted happened’.

I did propose to her that day, we got married an year later, I got a good job in a decent company and make a good living, bought a home and it was exactly 5 years since I proposed for a better life with her. Life’s good and exactly where I always wanted it to be.

Its been a while since all this has happened and I have come to accept the my life although I still don’t remember the 5 years. With a life so good, I had no complaints although there are times when I wish I knew what made me forget everything and reset my memory to that particular day in my life.

I reached the meeting point and was waiting for her at a stone table by the tower when a weird feeling takes over. The first thing I notice is that my shoes are different. That’s not the shoes I picked out in the morning, I don’t even remember I had those shoes. I immediately noticed my clothes are different too. I was holding a phone that wasn’t mine, or atleast I thought wasn’t mine. But I was holding it so I continued holding it for a little longer. All of this definitely felt freaky but I kept waiting for her. Its past a few hours now and she hasn’t shown up yet. I am already cursing myself on picking an afternoon for this. I was hoping to celebrate the rest of the day but this hasn’t turned out that way so far. I tried using the phone but it’s not my phone. Its asks for a  pin number that I cannot recollect. I cannot unlock this phone but with the looks of it I was sure it was mine. It had my name etched on it and said ‘Love’. So I walk up to the student center nearby and call her from a booth there. I got her machine. The answering machine used to have her voice but now it’s just the default message. Nonetheless, I left messages asking her to call me back.

It’s been a while now and I am beginning to worry. I get a call back from my girl friend. Well, that wasn’t her though…apparently I have been calling the wrong person. I gathered that my girl friend  doesn’t own this number anymore and the new person had that for almost 2 years now. I decided to drop by her house and make sure she was doing alright. I knock the door a couple of times and wait for her to answer it but its not her. She doesn’t live there anymore. I am shocked, surprised and freaked out. Not knowing what to do and still knocked out of my wits, I head home. To add to my confusion I don’t live there anymore. All my neighbors are different, someone else lives in my house and no one has any idea where my family is.

Life’s taken a wrong turn for me. It’s like I was dreaming all this stuff till now and just woke up or I was still dreaming in my sleep. Whatever it is, this is not my life. Not knowing what do to, I decided to go spend the night at a friend’s place. It is no surprise that my friend doesn’t live there either. Now I am too scared with all the bad looks I was getting from all these houses and I am the brink of calling myself mad. I decided to use the last few bucks in my pocket to call my oldest friends and left a message with all of them. It was night already and hoping for someone to call me back, I decided to spend the night on a park bench.

Read part -2 to know what happens next.

So what was the festival you ask. Its the great Ganesha festival – Ganesha Chaturthi also called as  Vinayaka Chaturthi or Vinayaka Chavithi in Southern India. This is a very auspicious festival and is celebrated by Hindus all over the world. This is the birthday of Lord Ganesha, the leader of all the Gods and the remover of all obstacles according to Hinduism. This festival is observed during the Hindu month of Bhadrapada on the 4th day after new moon, the Chavithi. Hence the name Vinayaka Chavithi. The festival runs for 10 days and ends on the Ananta Chaturdasi. This festival is very famous in the state of Maharastra and is probably the most celebrated in the Indian city of Mumbai.

So we decided to throw a party with lots of good festival food and celebrate it with friends, and boy did we have a good time. It felt nice to have a good gathering on a nice summer afternoon. Meanwhile if you want to read up more on the festival, see what bing finds on the net for Ganesha Chaturthi.

I was to recognize all the active members and also encourage the not so active members to start taking active participation in the committe activities and other events.

I prepared a small speech for the meeting but mid way through the meeting I realized that almost everything on my speech was already conveyed to the members by other members of the committee executive board. Since I was the last one to speak I thought I might end the meeting on a lighter note and so started out laying the different kinds of active members in our group.

Active members: Members who actively take part in the activities that they seem to be interested in.

In-active members: Members who willingly avoid almost any kind of participation in the committee activities.

Over-active members: Members who with their high energy levels display their state of high caffiene and do things that they are not even supposed to do.

Re-active members: Members who do not take part in any activity and instead stop others from taking active participation.

And now my favorite…

Attr-active members: These are the real crowd pullers in the group who are not really required to do anything but make people around them actively participate in the group activities with their charm.

When the talk ended, I thought it was in my best interest to not wait for people to come up to me with their reactions and quietly slipped out through the back door. Now that was a talk wasnt it

There was a time (until Sachin beat Desmond Haynes’ record for the highest number of test centuries) when I could recollect at length the way every ball was bowled, the way it was hit by every Indian batsman, any incidents of spectacular fielding – you name it and I could be the talking parrot. So much that midterm exams were of no importance when it came to an Indian cricket match. 8 hours ( or 8×5 hours) of pure bliss. None of my girl friends dug me back then.

Here’s a bow to the greatest sport ever – Cricket.

So coming to this morning, the show featured the influence of sponsorship on sports. ICC chairman stated that a whopping 1.2 billion dollars would be amassed via sponsorships by the end of 2008. Also a few cricketers featured on the programme ( yesh, British english) Stephen Fleming the kiwi captain and Mushtaq Ahmed (not a big fan of him). They were talking about endorsements and how they exercise caution while deciding to endorse a product.

Then came the interesting part – tobacco and sports. The above cricketers claimed that they would never endorse anything related to tobacco, alcohol and gambling. I was sitting there saying bull !! Didn’t we not have the Wills cup ? Wasn’t Four Square a big sponsor of cricket? Feh !

In any event the experience was great just listening about cricket and too bad no Indian cricketer was on. That would have definitely made my day.

By the time I reached our concrete parking lot, satellite radio gave up on me and also reminded me there are less important things like earning my bread than living in passion for cricket. Also I could not listen to the rest of the programme.

I always wondered how often should you call or talk to your friend to make sure you stay in touch. Conversations with friends are a never ending process and no matter how much you talk to them, you know there is always something thats left out and you need to start another conversation to finish that one. Its a never ending process. The closer the friend is, the more you need to talk to them and discuss your life with them. If its the closest friend then he needs every detail of your personal life as well.

At the end of the day no matter how much you talk to them, does all the talking qualify as you staying in touch with them or am I over doing it? This question is way beyond my intellectual ability.

Seems this is an open letter from all guys to their gals.

The Guys’ Rules­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Please note that all the rules are numbered “1″ ON PURPOSE!

1. Men are not mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat.

You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1. Sunday sports. It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides.
Let it be.

1. Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want.
Let us be clear on this one:
Subtle hints do not work!
Strong hints do not work!
Obvious hints do not work!
Just say it!

1. Yes and No are perfectly Acceptable answers to almost every
question.

1. Come to us with a problem only If you want help solving it. That’s
what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem, See a doctor.

1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 Days.

1. If you won’t dress like the Victoria’s Secret girls, don’t expect us to act like soap opera guys.

1. If you think you’re fat, you probably are. Don’t ask us.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one

1. You can either ask us to do something Or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible , Please say whatever you have to say during
commercials.

1. Christopher Columbus did not need directions and neither do we.

1. All men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, NOT a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what Mauve is.

1. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say “nothing,” We will act like
nothing’s wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

1. If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to, Expect an answer you don’t want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear Is fine.  Really.

1. Don’t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you are prepared to
discuss such topics as football, baseball, the shotgun formation, or golf.

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape, Round is also a shape!

Now is that something really smart or utterly dumb.

I would go with the latter. I would not expect a normal person with a normal or higher degree of intellectuality to read that and go ” hey, hello to u too”. BTW, just for the record, that for .. whatever it was, meant a simple hello.

I had this sent to me by my “Expert Programmer” friend who thought it was quite innovative and said a lot about his programming skills. Well finally I have a reply befitting his “hello”. Next time I have him come over to my place, I am gonna offer him beer as in :

function whenfriendvisitsmyplace()
{

if(friend==you)     //you as in you my expert programmer friend
yougetbeer = false;

}

I got a new Acura TSX “Arctic Blue” with all the bells and whistles of a high end luxury car and the must-have navigation system. It was indeed a luxury car and you don’t even have to sit and ride in it to know that. For me, the price tag was enough to give a heart ache. It made into my list of prized possessions. Why I am not driving the Acura is a totally different story. (And oh btw if you haven’t noticed I am not flaunting the Acura)

Although the Acura was nice, I needed a Gult’s ride for me. Ergo I make the obvious choice of buying the Gultima (Right, you guessed it the Nissan Altima). The most popular of ‘em all. Rumor has it that Carlos Ghosn is planning to rename the Altima to Gultima just to give a gult allure

It’s a known fact and often desis are ridiculed at for owning the entire spectrum of (only and only) Hondas, Nissans and Toyotas(high-end and low-end alike). So much that these brands have been stereotyped to become what’s called a ‘desi’ car. This is true given the fact that almost all ‘desis’ I know own at least one of these. But isn’t the choice more likely dependent on the fact that the Japanese vehicles are extremely reliable and harbor an ever lasting engine.

People talk, but a desi lives to brag about his ideas and thoughts on almost everything relevant and irrelavant. So obviously the ideology behind the desi car got around faster and people stuck to these brands only.

As for me, I don’t care for any of what I just said – I just need my ride, ‘Gultima’ , the Gult’s Ride.

Hindi movie industry, well what can one say. A billion dollar industry churning out about 700 movies every year and almost each and everyone of them is as bad as the rest of them. ‘Krishh’, the most awaited movie of the year, I donno why people are waiting for it to release, so that they finally realize that Hrithik is not that good an actor or his dad is not a very good movie maker.

So I get my tickets beating the very many online in time and manage the best seats in the hall. The movie starts with a flashback kind of situation wherein we are made to relive the whole experience of Koi Mil Gaya. The movie then takes off with the story of the new superhero in Indian cinema, Krishh.

By the way, what was so superheroic about him afterall. I have seen other movies, wherein the hero (not superhero) fights 50+ people in a single fight sequence, jumps off cliffs faster than Krishh and still manages to romance more than 3 gals at the same time. Some of the other not so super heroes even blocked bullets with hand, cut bullets with a knife and shoot from a galaxy far far away and still manage to hit the target. So this ‘Krishh’ is not so super afterall, is he? But I did sit through the movie only to realize that I will have to watch the other Hrithik from Koi Mil Gaya with this Hrithik in Krrishh at the end and come out all glazed with my head spinning.

Gosh.. what a waste of useful time and energy. So again, why was i ‘shh’ed in the theatre?

My rating: Never mind out of 5